A dangerous challenge on TikTok landed a North Carolina teen in the hospital with serious burns over nearly 80 percent of his disfigured body.
Grisly photos of Mason Dark have gone viral after the 16-year-old was dared by a group of TikTokers to make a torch out of a spray paint can and a lighter.
The TT users often meet online to create mini-flamethrowers, but this time their makeshift project went awry as Dark was engulfed in flames after the can exploded.
Dark ran to a river near his Wake Forest home and dove inside to put out the flames. When he emerged from the water, he had third-degree burns over 76 percent of his body, including his face.
His mom, Holli, told Fox affiliate WRAL News, “He is unrecognizable, unrecognizable." She also said her son was rushed to a burn center, where he has already undergone skin grafts, which are surgeries that replace damaged skin with healthy skin from unaffected areas of the body. Dark is expected to stay in the hospital for at least 6 months.
Holli went on to say her son's flaming, bunched-up T-shirt was seared into his skin while he was trying to remove it at the riverbed.
She added that his physical appearance has only worsened since the accident last week, explaining, “The way he looked when those kids saw him when he first came in, to what he looks like now, it’s 100 times different."
Dark is an active high school football player and track runner.