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A dangerous party trick is gaining popularity all over the Internet: People, children and adults alike, are all trying to “bend fire” by picking up hand sanitizer – that’s on fire.
Here’s what they do.
They make a bowl out of aluminum foil, then pour in a generous amount of hand sanitizer. The alcohol content in hand sanitizer will allow it to catch on fire, and if you’re quick enough, you can scoop up some of the sanitizer as it burns – without getting hurt.
But that’s where the trick is. You have to blow out the fire before it grows.
Eight-year-old James DiTucci didn’t realize the timing was so important, so when he tried it at a sleepover with his brother and cousin, everything went wrong.
James ended up getting hand sanitizer on his shirt, and both his hand and shirt caught on fire. His mother, Tashia, recalled, “I heard just god-awful, blood-curdling cries and screams.”
Then James came down the stairs, and she saw all the burns that covered his body and how red his skin had become from the flames.
Tashia rushed her son to the hospital, where doctors told her he suffered second-degree burns on 15% of his body and had lost the entire top layer of skin on his hands. If James’ brother and cousin hadn’t put the fire out when they had, there was a chance James wouldn’t have survived the accident.
Thankfully, doctors are hopeful about James’ recovery.
But Tashia isn’t taking any chances. She’s now warning parents to keep an eye on what their children watch on YouTube. “They don't get to see the after effects of what may happen if it should go wrong, and now my son is an example of what can and will go wrong,” she said tearfully.
