Hi Jeff and Charlie,
I wanted to share this story with you in case the recent news of the Columbus high school boy who died of the "choking game" is mentioned on your show.
We lost our son, Jack, at 13 years old to the same activity. He was a 8th grade student at Longfellow M.S. in Wauwatosa. He died Oct 25, 2006. We worked so hard to bring awareness about this deadly activity to our area by organizing a parent information night, a school district inservice (at the Wauwatosa school district in May of 2008) and a police officer- school resource officer training session at MATC (Oct. 2008). We are currently working with Children's Hospital to come up with some type of programing for pediatricians and other medical providers who might be able to recognize signs of kids doing this activity. I am so sad that the Jensen family of Columbus has to experience this tragic loss and that we were not able to help prevent that.
Here are two excellent web sites if you want to familize yourself about the "choking game" before you talk about it. It happens more than anyone can realize because so often the deaths are ruled suicide or undetermined. Its common knowledge in the schools but kids wont talk about it once the tragedy occurs.
In response to these kinds of stories, many people react with - these were dumb kids, these kids had no supervision, where were the parents? I can tell you that Jack was a very bright boy, was supervised and held accountable for the impulsive teenage actions he was doing and I was in our home when he did this activity. I had just spoken to him 15 minutes before I found him, on his knees. I was going to ask him to come help me make his favorite dinner, Chancery Chicken.
If this topic does come up on either of your shows, please direct anyone to these two excellent web sites.
Thank you and call if you need any more information,
Sincerely,
Judy Doyle, Jack's Mom
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
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