Schoolboy Burns To Death While Trying To Straighten Hair Using Kerosene, Lit Matchstick

A schoolboy in India died from burns injuries after he tried to imitate a hair-straightening hack he had seen on YouTube.

The 12-year-old boy, identified as Sivanarayanan, was a social media addict. On Tuesday night, he decided to straighten his hair using a method he saw on YouTube. For this, he doused his hair with some kerosene and then lit a matchstick next to it, India.com reported. The incident took place in the southern state of Kerala.

Sivanarayanan tried the hack in the bathroom in his house. His grandmother, who was the only person at home when the incident took place, rushed to the bathroom upon hearing his screams.

Upon noticing his hair was on fire, the woman tried to douse it, but the fire soon spread to his body. She immediately informed the neighbors who rushed the boy to a local hospital where he succumbed to burn injuries the following morning, news agency PTI reported.

The police told local media the boy, who was in grade seven, attempted the act after watching YouTube videos wherein people were using spirit and fire to straighten the hair. The videos had apparently gone viral on social media.

The boy’s body will be returned to the family following an autopsy.

A study in 2019 showed internet addiction was on a rise among kids in India, with psychiatrists getting three-four such cases in a month, in which the children are between the ages of eight and 18.

This is not the first time a child has been hurt or injured while imitating a social media video.

In an incident in the Philippines last year, a 4-year-old girl almost lost her life after she attempted to hang herself while aping a TikTok video. The girl found the Venetian blinds pull cords in the bedroom and wrapped her neck several times before jumping. Her mother was able to save the girl in the nick of time. The mother took to Facebook to say the girl had seen a video in which "a kid tied a rope around his neck then he became a ghost." The girl suffered a scar and scratch around the neck.