A Wake Forest community is rallying around a teenage boy who is recovering from burns on nearly 80% of his body.
A video challenge on TikTok that prompts people to use a lighter and a can of paint spray nearly killed Mason Dark, a 16-year-old student at Heritage High School. Dark, a standout athlete and football player at the school, is now at the UNC Burn Center.

“He is unrecognizable, unrecognizable,” said Holli Dark, the boy’s mom.

Dark said her son has a big personality. She said her son used a lighter and spray paint as a torch on Sunday.

“They all heard a big boom, and then Mason came running out and [he] started taking off his shirt,” Dark said.

Mason jumped in a river to soothe the burn pains.

“[We] come to find out now from the surgery, that he’s got the third-degree burns … it’s like a T in his back and it was from him taking off his shirt, and then it got stuck or something,” Dark said.

Mason was wrapped like a mummy at the burn center, bandaged from head to toe.

“We did not find out until yesterday that it was actually 76% of his body,” Dark said. On Wednesday, Mason went into surgery to get skin grafts to start the long healing process. Dark said it's like seeding a lawn to see her son's skin slowly heal.

“The way he looked when those kids saw him when he first came in, to what he looks like now, it’s 100 times different,” Dark said.

Mason is expected to remain in the UNC Burn Center for at least six months.

"It is challenges on TikTok," Dark said. "I guess kids have been doing this a long time."

Holli Dark has set up a GoFundMe page on her son’s behalf. As of Friday afternoon, the fund had raised $15,583 of its $25,000 goal. mason dark tiktok

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