Teen injured in ‘duct tape challenge' recovering at home

The 14-year-old Renton boy who was badly injured during the social media "duct tape" challenge left the hospital on Thursday.

Skylar Fish is now rehabbing at home after getting 48 staples on his head.

I'm just, actually, really lucky to be alive,” Skylar Fish said from his hospital bed at Harborview Medical Center, when he talked to KIRO 7 News.

Fish wasn’t injured in his first attempt at the challenge. He and his friends did it once before when they taped one another to a pole.

But the second time around, they decided to tape up Fish when he was standing. He and two buddies went to Renton Academy on a Saturday, where they had duct taped his arms and legs.

"When I think about it, it seems like I was hit by a car," Fish explained.

His head slammed into the concrete, causing a brain aneurysm. 

"When he fell, he hit the corner of the window frame," Skylar's mom, Sarah Fish, said. "It crushed his whole eye socket and pinched off nerves in his eye."

He may never get his vision back in that eye.

His has gone viral. He and his mother wanted to warn other teens about challenges circulating on social media.

“Teach other kids not to do it,” Skylar Fish explained. “When I think about it, I become sad and then really happy, because I'm happy, because I survived it. I almost died.”

Renton police looked into what happened. Sarah Fish said they're closing the case, because it appears what happened was simply an accident.

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“I want people to stop and think that there are so many risks to any of these challenges,” she said. “They're dangerous.”

Skylar Fish's family has created a crowdfunding campaign to help with his recovery costs. 

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Cox Media Group