Warnings Over Deadly Paracetamol Challenge

A Yorkshire mum is warning about a new and dangerous social media craze – the paracetamol challenge.

She’s been speaking to Viking after hearing about the challenge, that's doing the rounds on Facebook and Twitter, which involves teenagers daring each other to take as many as they can.

She wants people to be aware that abusing the drug can be fatal – after her own daughter died.

Mandy Yousaf's 19-year-old daughter Charlotte didn’t do the challenge, but died from a paracetamol overdose in 2011 after splitting with her boyfriend

She’d taken the pills on Monday, but collapsed on Friday. Mandy says if she’d gone to hospital, she might have been okay.

“Where she was stopping didn’t realise how poorly she was and if she’d gone to hospital before she would have been fine. 72 hours and she might have needed a liver transplant but it was too late for any of that, her organs had already gone".

Mandy admits she was so shocked about the social media challenge that she thought it was a joke. Now she's warning others to think twice before doing it.

"They’re so easy to get over the counter. Children follow their friends.. and that’s what happens. They haven’t a clue how strong it is. Charlotte was sick, thought she was fine .. But the poison was already in her body.

"Don’t do it – think about your family. It's not a game, life’s not a game – the end is the end, there’s no coming back at all".

For more information - including what to do if you think someone's been poisoned – click here