So, The 'Hot Water Challenge' Is A Thing Now—And Yeah, It's Pretty Dangerous

I can’t, for the life of me, understand why someone would pour boiling hot water on someone else, but uh, it’s happening.

It’s called the “Hot Water Challenge,” and it involves either throwing boiling hot water on someone or having someone drink boiling hot water through a straw, according to ABC News 10.

Kyland Clark is a 15-year-old who says that he and a friend looked up the Hot Water Challenge on YouTube and they decided to prank each other. So, while Kyland was asleep, his friend poured boiling hot water on him…as a joke.

“And then I looked down at my chest. My skin just fell off my chest, and then I looked in the mirror and I had skin falling off here and on my face,” Kyland said.

Kyland ended up with second-degree burns on his back, chest, and face, and had to stay in the hospital for a week to be treated.

This trend, unfortunately, isn’t new: There are Instagram videos of people doing the Hot Water Challenge—sometimes to themselves—going back to last year. And, in July 2017, an eight-year-old girl died after her cousin dared her to drink boiling water, according to WFTS, Tampa Bay’s ABC affiliate station. The girl severely burned her throat and mouth after drinking the water. The challenge reportedly left her deaf and with chronic respiratory issues, reports WFTS.

Just in case it’s not totally obvious why you should never pour boiling hot water on someone (or intentionally drink it!), here’s a quick refresher: Hot water can cause serious burns to your body, including second degree burns (which affect the top and secondary layer of your skin) and third-degree burns (which reaches the fat layer beneath your skin and can cause nerve damage), according to the Mayo Clinic.

That’s why the Mayo Clinic specifically recommends setting your water heater’s thermostat to below 120 degrees Fahrenheit to make sure that no one in your house is burned in the shower or bath. FYI: Water’s boiling point is 212 degrees Farenheit—so again, please, please don’t pour it on anyone (or drink it yourself).

Kyland, who is expected to heal from his injuries, says he wants to warn other people not to do this challenge.”There’s a limit to what you should do in a challenge and what you shouldn’t. Don’t take it overboard,” he said.

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