The tragic story of a 12-year-old boy from Glasshoughton, West Yorkshire, has resurfaced alarming concerns over the dangerous influence of certain online challenges. During a family gathering for his younger brother’s First Holy Communion, young Sebastian Cizman was discovered lifeless by his cousin at their home.

It is believed that Sebastian was attempting to mimic a perilous challenge, inspired by the popular series “Squid Game,” which involves restricting one’s breath to the point of passing out. This stunt has been connected to several child fatalities worldwide, prompting grave warnings from health professionals about its potential to cause irreversible brain damage or even death within minutes.

On that fateful evening of June 27, Sebastian was found on the staircase of his family’s terraced house, a sheet ominously wrapped around his neck. Despite the valiant efforts of paramedics who tried to save him, the young boy was sadly declared deceased at the hospital.

Health experts have warned it can cause permanent brain damage or death in under five minutes.

Sebastian was discovered with a sheet around his neck, lying motionless on the stairs of the family’s terraced home on the evening of June 27.

Despite desperate efforts by paramedics to revive him, he was tragically pronounced dead at hospital.

Sebastian was a fan of a game based on Netflix dystopian thriller Squid Game and police found an image on his phone of a character from the show who was found hanging, the inquest heard.

He was described as a popular boy and a ‘prankster’ who enjoyed making his friends laugh.

Sebastian Cizman, 12, was found unresponsive at his family’s home in Glasshoughton, West Yorkshire, during his younger brother’s First Holy Communion celebrations 

Sebastian’s heartbroken parents Marcin (right) and Kasia (left) spoke out to urge other families to wake up to the dangers lurking on their children’s phones

The inquest at Wakefield Coroner’s Court also heard how Sebastian had previously pretended to be unconscious while play fighting.  

After speaking to his family, police believed he may have been attempting to recreate what he had seen on Squid Game but things had gone wrong.

Sebastian had shared an image of the hanged Squid Game character on a WhatsApp group on the day of his death.

A police investigation found no evidence he had searched for any dangerous challenges on TikTok, but he had viewed Squid Games and had also searched YouTube for a first-aid video about ‘surviving choking alone.’ 

The ‘speculation’ surrounding dangerous challenges had been put forward shortly after his death but police had found no evidence to support it, the inquest heard.

Sebastian’s family had previously talked to him about the dangers of such online challenges and he said that he wouldn’t try them.

Detective Sergeant Paul Bayliss, who investigated the circumstances around Sebastian’s death, told the inquest hearing that boy was interested in Squid Game, and the character who took their own life whose image was found on his phone, coupled with his ‘prankster nature’, had led to the hypothesis to explain his death.

Dr Philip Dore, headteacher at St Wilfred’s Catholic High School, said Sebastian had been a popular, happy and funny pupil who was good at making his class laugh. 

He had been a form rep and had garnered more than 200 positive comments from staff and had previously been named ‘star of the class’. 

Sebastian’s parents, Marcin and Katarzyna, said that Sebastian was a happy boy who had no mental health problems. 

In a statement, they said that they believed his death was caused by a tragic accident. 

Ruling a verdict of death by misadventure, assistant coroner John Hobson described Sebastian’s death as a ‘very tragic set of circumstances’.

Earlier this year, in an interview with the Daily Mail, they called for urgent action to hold tech giants accountable for the dangerous videos being uploaded to their platforms and pushed on to their feeds.

He is believed to have been imitating a challenge that encourages youngsters to choke themselves until they pass out, and which has been linked to multiple child deaths around the world 

Kasia (left) said: ‘They should take the people who are promoting these challenges and put them in prison, so no other child dies’

Kasia, 37, an office clerk, said: ‘They should take the people who are promoting these challenges and put them in prison, so no other child dies.

‘These platforms don’t do anything. It is completely unchecked. They make money and they don’t care.

‘It’s hard what I’m going to say, but I hope that the loss of my child is going to help some other children to understand.

‘And for the people that run these social media platforms to do something, to stop it from happening.

‘How many kids have to die until they will do something?

‘My message to other parents is check your children’s phones before it is too late.’

Sebastian was found fatally injured on a staircase at the family’s end-of-terraced home during an ‘absolutely happy’ day with his family and cousins from Poland for the communion of younger brother Mike, nine.

Kasia said: ‘We were cooking downstairs, and the kids had all been playing on the trampoline.

‘Marcin brought out ice creams and called the kids. Then the kids came downstairs without Sebastian.

‘So Marcin asked “where’s Sebastian?”. His cousin said they were tired from jumping on the trampoline and that he went upstairs for a rest.

‘He told them to go and fetch him, and they came back after a few seconds and said “I don’t know if Sebastian’s joking or not, but he’s lying on the stairs”.

‘We ran upstairs and found him. He had taken a sheet from the duvet, which wrapped around his neck but not tightly.

‘We called for an ambulance straight away and started to resuscitate him. We didn’t stop until the paramedics arrived.’

Sebastian, a self-taught classical pianist, was able to access social media despite platforms requiring their users to be at least 13 years old.

Sebastian had no history of self-harm, and his parents say he would never knowingly risk his life.

Marcin said: ‘He was able to sign up for them with no questions asked. He was smart enough to do it. Smart enough to wriggle around it.’

It comes after the parents of four British teenagers filed a lawsuit against TikTok in February over the deaths of their children, which they claim were the result of a similar challenge.

The lawsuit related to the 2022 deaths of Isaac Kenevan, 13, Archie Battersbee, 12, Julian ‘Jools’ Sweeney, 14, and Maia Walsh, 13.

The lethal trends, which have been widely condemned by experts, often show up in users’ social media feeds without being directly searched for.