Viral TikTok Trend, “Skull Breaker Challenge,” Hospitalizes Multiple Kids

Viral TikTok Trend, “Skull Breaker Challenge,” Hospitalizes Multiple Kids

A new trend on the popular app TikTok has left multiple kids hospitalized around the United States. 

TikTok, Skull Breaker, Kids InjuredJustin Sullivan / Getty Images

“The Skull Breaker Challenge” revolves around two people tripping a third person by tricking them into jumping into the air. Then, the two people kick their legs out from under them.

“They didn’t tell me that they just told me we were going to jump for a video. Of course I was excited since they were upperclassmen and they were asking me to be in their video,” Mountainside High School ninth-grader Olivia Ross told Koin News. “But I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

Olivia and her mother are now battling this and other forms of bullying with a new non-profit organization called Teaching Kindness Matters.

“I couldn’t get up because I couldn’t feel my hands,” Thirteen-year-old Kathleen DeJesus ABC News. “I couldn’t feel my legs, my feet, nothing. I was numb.” 

DeJesus was rushed to the hospital after two students pulled the prank on her at Lawrence Massachusetts Middle School. She spent two days in the hospital recovering from a severe concussion.

“I was screaming that I needed an ambulance,” said DeJesus. “I was thinking like ‘Oh my God I’m going to lose my life over this game.’ I should have never done it.”

TikTok tells ABC News that safety is extremely important to the company and they “do not allow content that encourages or replicates dangerous challenges that might lead to injury.”