A 22-year-old dancer and singer, who injured his spinal cord while performing a backflip for the popular mobile app TikTok, died in Bengaluru’s Victoria Hospital on Sunday, June 23. Kumaraswamy battled for life for eight days.

While performing the stunt, Kumaraswamy of Naduvanahalli in Chikkanayakanahalli, Tumakuru lost balance, fell down and fractured his spinal cord.

The Incident

The incident took place on June 15 while he was shooting the video at the local school ground. The only breadwinner for his family, Kumaraswamy was working as a singer and dancer in a Tumakuru-based orchestra team Ramu Melodies.

His family said that he did not own a smartphone and his friends were shooting the video for him, to be uploaded on TikTok, The Indian Express reported. 

The incident comes a few days after a 12-year-old boy from Kota, Rajasthan, hanged himself from a noose in his bathroom as a part of the TikTok challenge.

Users are often taking life-threatening risks for the sake of going viral. A two-year-old in Wuhan, China, sustained injuries to the head after a relative attempted to flip the child 180 degrees to recreate a dangerous act he saw in a TikTok video.

Recently, a teenager lost his life after accidentally pressing the trigger of a pistol while shooting a clip for TikTok in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district.

While some of these challenges and acts may often look harmless on the surface, they can clearly have disastrous effects, to the extent of killing someone. TikTok made headlines when it was banned and again when the ban was lifted, and then the debate faded into oblivion.

TikTok, however, is not to be blamed completely, as it is important that individuals act rationally and do not indulge in acts that may cost their lives, just for the sake of going viral.

The Logical Indian has reached out to the TikTok team for a statement. The story will be updated accordingly. 

Also Read: Rajasthan: 12-Yr-Old Boy Hangs Himself As Part Of TikTok Challenge