{"id":916690,"date":"2026-07-06T16:33:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/916690\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T16:33:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T16:33:18","slug":"15-year-old-dies-after-attempting-viral-benadryl-challenge-father-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/916690\/","title":{"rendered":"15-year-old dies after attempting viral \u2018Benadryl challenge,\u2019 father says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">ENID, Okla. (Gray News) &#8211; A 15-year-old girl died after attempting the viral \u201cBenadryl challenge,\u201d according to her father.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Richard Presson shared his daughter\u2019s story with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.koco.com\/article\/oklahoma-father-speaks-daughter-hospitalized-benadryl-challenge\/71576301\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.koco.com\/article\/oklahoma-father-speaks-daughter-hospitalized-benadryl-challenge\/71576301\">KOLO<\/a> on June 12. On June 26, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.koco.com\/article\/oklahoma-teen-dies-after-attempting-viral-benadryl-challenge\/71751278\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.koco.com\/article\/oklahoma-teen-dies-after-attempting-viral-benadryl-challenge\/71751278\">confirmed<\/a> his daughter\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Presson said it has been \u201cheartbreaking\u201d watching his daughter \u201cgo through this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWithin 24 hours, she tried this, and she\u2019s laying lifeless,\u201d Presson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The viral \u201cBenadryl challenge\u201d involves taking excessive doses of the medication to try to get high.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI was told by one of my daughter\u2019s friends that her and my daughter have both been doing this challenge,\u201d Presson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Before her death, Presson\u2019s daughter was on a ventilator in the ICU after losing all brain function.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cShe\u2019s sadly lost all of her brain functions. And I think helping her right now is a ventilator,\u201d Presson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In 2020, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/drugs\/drug-safety-and-availability\/fda-warns-about-serious-problems-high-doses-allergy-medicine-diphenhydramine-benadryl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/drugs\/drug-safety-and-availability\/fda-warns-about-serious-problems-high-doses-allergy-medicine-diphenhydramine-benadryl\">Food and Drug Administration<\/a> warned that taking high doses of Benadryl can lead to serious heart problems, seizures, coma or even death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/oklahoma-teen-has-no-brain-activity-after-allegedly-participating-in-benadryl-challenge-12000243\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/people.com\/oklahoma-teen-has-no-brain-activity-after-allegedly-participating-in-benadryl-challenge-12000243\">People<\/a>, TikTok shared that content promoting dangerous behavior that could lead to serious injury violates its Community Guidelines and is removed from the platform.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">TikTok also said searches for \u201cBenadryl challenge\u201d have redirected users to its Community Guidelines and substance support resources for several years, according to People.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/oklahoma-teen-has-no-brain-activity-after-allegedly-participating-in-benadryl-challenge-12000243\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/people.com\/oklahoma-teen-has-no-brain-activity-after-allegedly-participating-in-benadryl-challenge-12000243\">People<\/a> reported that YouTube said it has \u201cstrict, long-standing policies prohibiting content that encourages dangerous challenges that risk serious injury or death and the abuse of non-regulated substances.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Presson is urging parents to educate themselves on online trends and potential dangers that may come with them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAnybody else that has children? I just highly advise them to watch out, you know, for new trending challenges and, you know, look for signs of it. Look them up, see what they mean. And if someone would have spoke sooner and made us aware, this could have saved countless lives for other children\u2019s. At least my daughter\u2019s life. I want to make other people aware,\u201d Presson said.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ENID, Okla. (Gray News) &#8211; A 15-year-old girl died after attempting the viral \u201cBenadryl challenge,\u201d according to her&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":916691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[34],"tags":[71868,126780,370328,210,366392,1060,370326,67,132,68,370327],"class_list":["post-916690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-benadryl","tag-benadryl-challenge","tag-benadryl-death","tag-health","tag-leah-presson","tag-medication","tag-richard-presson","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-viral-challenge"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}