The Granville County Sheriff’s Office and Granville County Public Schools are warning parents about a dangerous TikTok challenge after a high schooler in the district took part in it.
The “Benadryl challenge,” encourages young people to take large, toxic doses of over-the-counter medications, like Benadryl, to the point the person trips out or hallucinates.
“We found out through a parent that called us,” says Granville County Sheriff Robert Fountain Jr. “We had been doing some mentoring with this child in our community, and he was just having some issues with trying to adapt and fit in. We got a call from 911. His mother told us that there was this challenge on Tik Tok, and that her son told her about it, and he tried it.”
Fountain says the teen was OK, despite the possibility of severe health complications.
The “Benadryl challenge” is not new. In fact, Harvard Medical School was warning about it as much as five years ago.
Both Johnson & Johnson and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued public warnings about the challenge’s extreme risks.
“This is extremely dangerous behavior,” Duke pediatric medicine specialist Dr. Emily Greenwald said. “As soon as you get really, even just a little bit past what we call the therapeutic dose, you start to get these serious side effects.”
Greenwald said those side effects can include seizures and dangerous heart arrhythmias that can lead to death. She said many patients end up in the intensive care unit.
The sheriff’s office and school system are reminding parents to review and properly store medications out of reach of young people, and to talk with their kids about the risks that come with viral social media challenges.
“These kids need to start looking at what the end result is,” said Fountain. “It’s ok to be cool, but then your parents are going to suffer if they lose you.”
In a statement to WRAL, Granville County Public Schools spokesperson Dr. Courtney Currin says, “We strongly encourage our families to either restrict access to harmful social media content or make sure their children have the necessary skills to resist the pressures inherent in using social media.”
In May, the Fayetteville Fire Department issued a warning to parents about a different TikTok trend that encouraged students to put objects into school-issued Chromebook ports.
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