Dying to play

~ Parents and school officials warn about the deadly dangers of the choking game

t's during the most routine moments that Sarah Pacatte thinks of her son Gabe.

It's when she's at the grocery store and sees the things he liked to eat. Strawberries. Kix cereal. It's when she notices a scent, like the one unique to a teenage boy.

"Now I can't smell his feet anymore," says Pacatte, 43, a former preschool teacher in Paradise, Calif.

Pacatte's 13-year-old son Gabe Mordecai died last year while playing a game that likely has been around for generations -- a game in which children restrict the oxygen to their brains to achieve a lightheaded sensation.

Such deaths are being reported across the nation. Even in Southeast Missouri, local school officials recently sent home warning notes to parents explaining the dangers. Ste. Genevieve Elementary School distributed flyers earlier this year explaining what the game was and listed warning signs of involvement.

Pacatte is trying to educate the world about those dangers -- landing spots on CNN, "Dr. Phil" and "The Early Show" in her crusade.

It used to be that children dabbled in the game together, applying pressure to each other's chests or catching one another after holding their breath until they were on the verge of passing out. But the choking game now is often being played by children alone, usually with a rope or belt fashioned into a noose.

That's what Gabe was doing May 5 when he tied a blue-and-white nylon rope to the top bunk of the bunk beds he shared with his twin brother, Sam. He likely didn't expect to pass out and slam his forehead against the bed, his mother reasons. And when he measured the rope, he didn't calculate that he would fall beyond the bottom bunk and land on the floor, with his math book still in his lap.

"I saw Gabe and thought he was playing," recalls Sam, who found his twin when he went into their bedroom to put on his pajamas that night. "I told him to knock it off."

But Gabe didn't move.

Seeing that Gabe's arm was blotchy purple, Sam yelled frantically.

"I heard the way he said his brother's name," remembers Pacatte, who was in the kitchen at the time. "I knew there was something really, really wrong."

Gabe was pronounced dead the following day, and the death ruled accidental.

Teaching the dangers

For Gabe's mother, grief has manifested itself in many forms. After soldiering back to her job as a preschool teacher a week and a half after the funeral, Pacatte quit in January. Watching children run and play was too devastating.

Pacatte, who has always struggled financially as a single mother, now faces eviction from her modest apartment.

She's looking for a job, but she can't escape the lure of the computer, where she maintains the Web site, www.stillloving mygabriel.com, which is part informational resource and part homage to her late son.

The computer hums half the day as Pacatte writes e-mails to anyone who will listen: school administrators, police officers, medical examiners and doctors.

Along the way, she has created a support network of other mothers whose children have accidentally hanged themselves, talking to several regularly since they are the only ones who seem to understand what she is feeling.

When Pacatte overheard the twins talking about choking each other, she gave them an earful. She warned them about the dangers, just like she would remind them to look both ways before crossing the street or to stay away from strangers.

Now, she wishes she had said more.

The boys' father, Blair Mordecai of Berkeley, Calif., also kicks himself when he thinks about the chance he might have had to save Gabe.

During a visit, a friend called to say the twins had taught his children to play the choking game.

"I made them promise not to do it because I told them how dangerous it was," says Mordecai, a carpenter.

The only thing he can do now is warn other parents.

"If there's any suspicion in your mind that your child's doing this, don't let them out of your sight and keep pounding into their head, it's not a game," he says.

For Sam, Gabe's twin, life today is discovering what it's like to navigate the world without a partner. While Sam says he stopped playing the choking game after all the lectures, Gabe obviously didn't.

"I think that I've accepted that he's gone," says Sam. "I'm pretty positive I'll see him again and it's not that long -- 70 years or so."

From Scripps Howard News Service.