Beaufort couple talks of losing teen to choking game | News

It's a game that's killing young people around the country, including the Lowcountry and Coastal Empire.

The signs aren't always there. Many times, it's only discovered after it's too late.  It's called the choking game - a game that has no winners.

Children as young as 9 are playing this game. Sometimes they're even younger.

The choking game game is something one couple from Beaufort had never heard of, but now they want all parents to know about it so no more children die.

Their story is powerful and so is some of the video used to tell this story. 

The game is known as the "good kids high". Most children who play it are smart and outgoing. They are young people who plan to go to college, and don't want to jeopardize that future by getting involved in drugs. They turn to this game but what they don't realize, it's deadly.

"Two out of three children who do this for the first time by themselves die," said Jonelle Baaske.

Jonelle and Erik Baaske didn't learn about this game until it was too late. Their daughter, Laurian, died when she was 13 years old.

Laurian's story shows just how dangerous the game is. Her parents said that from the time she was a young girl, she caught everyone's attention. Her sweet smile and ability to communicate with adults set her apart from children her own age.

As she got older, her personality and ambition for life shined. "She was just a happy outward child that had a lot she wanted to do with her life and had already decided where she was going to college," said Jonelle Baaske of her daughter.

Her sights were set on Savannah College of Art and Design, where she wanted to learn to become a designer. It seemed Laurian was on the path to success until July 1, 2010. 

"I found our daughter in her closet not breathing," Erik Baaske said.

"She was standing she wasn't hanging or anything. She was standing up right and part of the loop she had used. She had tried to take it off," Jonelle Baaske said.

What happened? Why would a determined and driven teenager take her own life? Or did she?

When the Basskes found their daughter, the choking game had never crossed their minds. They had never even heard of the game. It wasn't until a family member, who's a police officer in Texas, talked to Erik Basske about the game that they put two and two together.

"Everything that he was telling me, she was found in a room, the door was locked, there was no history of any activity, it was almost like a list and everything matched up," said Erik Baaske.

Laurian's parents say their daughter died not by suicide, but by experimenting with a game. A game children and teens all over the country are playing with fatal results.

"In her mind, she thought when she put her weight to it that the belt would give, and it would untangle itself off the bar, and that would be the end of it," Jonelle Baaske said.

But it didn't untangle. The Baaskes lost their only daughter to a game that has no winners.

"We all talk to our kids about drugs and alcohol, and smoking and all of these things, but never knew about this and had we known, we would have talked to our daughter. And that's what we want. We want other parents to know so they can talk to their children so that they don't have to go through this," said Jonelle Baaske.

The warning signs aren't easy to see. On Wednesday on The News at 6, WTOC is going to talk about the not-so-obvious signs you can look for, and hear from a doctor from the Children's Hospital at Memorial about effects this game has on the brain. In some instances, the child may not die, but could be brain dead.

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