Mother turns loss of her son into a crusade

Mother turns loss of her son into a crusade
By Gina Kim -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, March 12, 2006
Story appeared in Scene section, Page L1
It'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, 90 miles north of Sacramento.

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

It used to be that kids 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 kids 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 airlifted to Kaiser Permanente Sacramento Medical Center,
where he was pronounced dead the following day. The Sacramento County
Coroner's Office ruled his death accidental.

A mother mourns

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.

"I look at those babies, and the bottom line is I couldn't keep mine
alive," Pacatte says. "I can't hardly live with what happened to
Gabriel; I couldn't live with myself if something happened to someone
else's child."

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.stilllovingmygabriel.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 hung themselves, talking to several
regularly since they are the only ones who seem to understand what she
is feeling.

But Pacatte continues to wish for the one thing she knows she can't
do: Go back in time and make her son realize how dangerous this game
is.

"I wish it had been pot," Pacatte says. "Then I would have never left
him alone."

Instead, 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.

"I'm not angry at Gabriel," she says. "I'm angry that this is killing
kids and no one told me."

Instead, she wears a silver cross around her neck with some of Gabe's
ashes encased inside.

"I don't like it, but it's all I have," she explains. "I take what I
can get."

A certain reunion
The boys' father, Blair Mordecai of Berkeley, 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 kids
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.

Mordecai thought the boys might hurt another child, not that they
would hurt themselves.

"But it never crossed my mind Gabe would put a rope around his neck,"
he says.

The only thing he can do now is warn other parents not to make the
same mistake.

"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. He sometimes feels awkward
around their friends and others who know he is the one who lived.

"At first people were quiet and stuff," says Sam, now 14. "I knew what
they were thinking."

While Sam says he stopped playing the choking game after all the
lectures, Gabe obviously didn't.

Perhaps it had something to do with Gabe's daredevil nature, the same
trait that propelled him into a wood stove when he was a toddler, or
into a river before he could swim, or out of a tree when he was 12,
putting him in a cast reaching from his ankle to his hip.

Now there is a star named after him, recorded with the International
Star Registry. The framed certificate hangs in Sam's room, the same
room he once shared with his brother and where his brother died.

The bunk beds - they switched off the top bunk every eight months -
have been taken down. There is no anger, just sadness.

"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."

WHAT THE GAME IS

The object of the so-called choking game is to restrict oxygen and
blood flow to the brain, resulting in a lightheaded sensation. The
"high" comes from brain cells seizing. When a victim becomes
unconscious and the pressure is released, there is another high from
the oxygen and blood flow rushing back to the brain.

This can lead to short-term memory loss, brain damage, seizures or
death.

WARNING SIGNS

* Severe headaches

* Bruising or red marks around the neck

* Ligatures such as bed sheets, belts, ties and ropes tied into knots

* Wear marks on furniture such as bunk beds or closet rods

* Disorientation

* Bloodshot or red eyes

* Raspy breath

* An unusual need for privacy

* Questions about the effects or dangers of strangulation

WHAT TO DO

Parents should discuss the game with children and let them know that
although it doesn't involve alcohol or drugs, it is dangerous and
possibly fatal.

If you suspect your child may be playing this game, his or her
Internet use could help confirm it because kids sometimes discuss the
game in chatrooms or blogs. You might also consider contacting the
parents of your child's friends as well as notifying school officials
so they can monitor your child.

Sources: www.dylan-the-boy-blake.com, www.stop-the-choking-game.com,
www.stilllovingmygabriel.com and www.deadlygameschildrenplay.com, put
together by relatives of victims; and Julie Rosenbluth, director of
adolescent prevention services for the American Council for Drug
Education

NAMES FOR THE CHOKING GAME

* Airplaning

* America dream game

* Blackout

* Breathplay

* California high or California choke

* Choke out

* Cloud nine

* Dream or dreaming

* Fainting

* Flatline or flatliner

* Funky chicken

* Gasp

* Ghost

* Hanging

* Hawaiian high

* Hyperventilation

* Knockout

* Pass out or passing out

* Purple dragon

* Natural high

* Rising sun

* Something dreaming

* Space cowboy

* Space monkey

* Suffocation or suffocation roulette

* Teen choking

* Tingling

Source: The Web sites www.dylan-the-boy-blake.com,
www.stop-the-choking-game.com, www.stilllovingmygabriel.com and
www.deadlygameschildrenplay.com, put together by relatives of victims

http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifest...15052261c.html

===
"Work like you don't need the money, Love like you've never been hurt, Dance like nobody's watching..."
-- Richard Leigh
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