When you thought viral challenges couldn't get any worse, teenagers have gone above and beyond to compete in the most shocking stunts.
These acts have varied from the ridiculous "Cinnamon Challenge" to the potentially deadly "Momo Challenge," but it hasn't stopped there.
One of the newest fads is participating in the alarming "Fire Challenge," and a Detroit mother is speaking out about the horrifying repercussions of this dangerous game.
Brandi Owens, 35, was taking an afternoon nap when she was woken up by a blood-curdling scream.
She saw her 12-year-old daughter Timiyah Landers running down the hallway, engulfed in flames.
"She was running down the hallway past my bedroom on fire from her knees to her hair," she said in an interview with PEOPLE. "I just screamed, "˜My baby!' It was so awful."
The mother-of-five and her fiance Marquell Sholar extinguished the fire with towels before putting her in a bathtub filled with cold water.
"I was reaching through the fire," Owens told The Washington Post, adding that she burned her hands while saving her daughter's life.
"It was like a reflex. ."‰."‰. I didn't even feel the fire, I was just saving my daughter."
They rushed Landers to the hospital, where she's currently attached to a ventilator in intensive care.
Due to the second and third-degree burns that are covering 49% of her body, she's scheduled to undergo four intensive surgeries and remain in the hospital for months.
"Her vitals are good, but she's still on a ventilator and feeding tube. They're slowly trying to wean her off the ventilator," Owens told PEOPLE.
"It will be a long recovery. She had surgery and received temporary artificial skin to her burns, but she's going to need three or four more surgeries and skin grafts."
Owens said she began questioning her daughter's friends about the incident, where they explained the premise of the viral challenge, where individuals lather themselves in rubbing alcohol and then had one of her friends light her on fire.
"After a while, her friends told me what happened," Owens explained. "I was angry, very angry. I couldn't believe she would do that, she knows better "” I don't know what she was thinking, doing that crazy stuff."
Now, Owens is issuing a stark warning to her fellow parents, asking them to "talk to [their children] about peer pressure."
"Monitor your kids, monitor what they're doing. If you can get parental control on their phones, I would recommend that," she said.
"That way they can monitor what their kids are watching, and talk to them about peer pressure. I'm doing that now with my other daughters, I'm doing that now. It was a lesson learned."
"I hate having these memories. It's something I never want to relive."
Share this article with your family and friends to make them aware of this potentially fatal challenge.
[H/T: PEOPLE]
