Kyland Clark, 15, was asleep when a friend threw scalding water on him.
Fifteen-year-old Kyland Clark was sound asleep when a friend doused him with scalding water, leaving the teenager seriously injured with second-degree burns.
Earlier, the two had been looking at videos of the "Hot Water Challenge," yet another disturbing viral video trend in which people engage in questionable, if not downright dangerous, behavior.
"We didn't know it was gonna turn out like this," the bandaged high school student told InsideEdition.com Monday. "Like usually, somebody just wakes up and their eye like burns. But they're ... it's OK."
It was definitely not OK for Kyland, who was hospitalized for a week with burns on his face, chest, back, neck and arms. He was swathed in bandages like the Mummy and his burned skin fell off in patches.
Kyland had been sleeping over at his friend's house. The boys were looking at videos of the challenge, which have been turning up on social media intermittently over the past few years. The prank usually involves throwing boiling or scalding water over oneself or an unsuspecting victim.
After Kyland fell asleep on the couch, his friend used a microwave to heat a container of water, then poured it over Kyland's body.
"Like he didn't know that this was gonna be the outcome," Kyland said. "I mean, it was out of the microwave, so I don't think he thought that the water could be that much damage coming out of the microwave."
The stunt has had serious consequences. An 8-year-old girl died in 2017 after her cousin told her to drink boiling water through a straw. An 11-year-old girl's face was severely burned when boiling water was poured on her during a sleepover in New York.
Other online viral challenges include swallowing a spoon of pure cinnamon, which can lead to respiratory failure, snorting items through one's nose and then pulling it out one's mouth, and setting yourself on fire by dousing yourself with a flammable liquid and holding a match to it.
Kyland's mom, Andrea, was notified by telephone that her son's hand had been injured. "When I got to the hospital, I was seeing something different," she said of Kyland's heavily bandaged body. "I was all over the place."
"At times I ask myself, 'Why?' and, 'What were they thinking?' But I mean, I love them the same," she said of her son and his friend. "They're typical teenagers."
She wishes they had been a bit smarter, she says, "but it could have been worse."
Kyland will be out of school for a while, and the pigment in his skin will eventually return. He is recovering well, he said, and mostly feels OK.
"He won't do another challenge, another prank, another nothin'," his mom intoned.
And his friend is still his friend, Kyland said.
"He stayed up there at the hospital with me every day and calls me every day," Kyland said. "He checks on me, he comes over on the weekends when he's not in school and stuff like that."
He added: "I know it wasn't on purpose."
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