Every so often, a new TikTok trend will have parents and police concerned as it seems to encourage destructive behavior in teens’ schools and local communities.
But while the efficiency of the platform’s algorithms can make such trends spread quickly enough to affect multiple communities at once, they tend to flame out just as abruptly because they’re such obvious nuisances that even the platform itself cracks down on them.
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For that reason, medical professionals and fitness guides are often more concerned about trends that appear to provide a health or aesthetic benefit to users, but actually pose serious risks to their safety and even their lives.
However, one tragic story illustrates that it’s also possible for seemingly legitimate techniques to prove just as dangerous for viewers if untrained hands try them without understanding the associated risks.
After all, just because a skilled professional can make a dazzling idea look easy to execute, that doesn’t mean just anyone can do it.
Throughout the past year, a decorative wood burning trend known as “fractal” or “lichtenburg” burning has periodically amazed users enough to go viral.
According to Insider , this technique involves using a high-voltage electric transformer to burn intricate patterns like the ones we see here into wooden surfaces.
Many examples of this technique found on TikTok come from professional wood shops, but it’s not actually hard to find the materials needed to try this since the key transformer can be found inside a microwave oven.
And that’s likely why the sheriff’s office of Marathon County, Wisconsin is now warning the public after a local couple passed away while attempting their own fractal burn.
According to a statement uploaded to Facebook, officers discovered the bodies of 44-year-old Tanya Rodriguez and 52-year-old James Carolfi after responding to a house fire they’ve since determined to be caused by the couple’s fractal burning equipment.
After conducting an investigation, police concluded that the transformer had fatally electrocuted the pair before starting a fire in their garage that spread to the rest of their home.
And according to the American Association of Woodturners, what happened to the couple isn’t exactly a freak occurrence.
As Safety Committee Chair Rick Baker explained on the organization’s website , the technique has been responsible for 33 known deaths since 2017.
And since these deaths included woodworkers of all skill levels, the association’s recommendations go even further than the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office.
Because while police say the technique should only be used by trained professionals, the association has banned the practice from all events and warns against using it at all regardless of your level of experience.
As Baker put it, this is because the high-voltage electricity involved makes fractal burning an invisible and sudden killer.
In his words, “It is easy to see the danger of a spinning saw blade. It is very obvious that coming into contact with a moving blade will cause an injury, but in almost all cases a spinning blade will not kill you. With fractal burning, one small mistake and you are dead.”
As he sees it, no aesthetic achievement is worth that kind of risk.
h/t: Insider
