A 9-year-old Illinois boy is recovering in the hospital after a squishy fidget toy turned into a fireball in his family’s microwave, leaving him with severe burns across his face and chest. The accident traces back to a viral social media trend that treats a simple NeeDoh cube like a DIY science experiment, with kids heating the toy to see it puff up and “explode.” Instead, the stunt left this child with second-degree burns and a long road of treatment, and his family is now speaking out in the hope that other parents will not learn the same lesson the hard way.
The boy, identified as 9-year-old Caleb Chabolla, followed what he believed was a harmless challenge involving a NeeDoh sensory cube and a microwave. Within seconds, the toy detonated, coating his skin in scalding gel and landing him in a burn unit. His story has quickly become a flashpoint in a broader conversation about how fast dangerous trends can spread across TikTok and other platforms, and how hard it is for adults to keep up.
How a squishy toy turned into a medical emergency
Caleb Chabolla lives in Plainfield, Illinois, and like a lot of fourth graders he loves fidget toys and scrolling through short videos with friends. Earlier this year, he put a NeeDoh cube in the microwave, copying a social media trend that promised a satisfying pop and a bigger, bouncier toy. Instead, the gel-filled cube exploded in his face, and the 9-year-old ended up hospitalized with second-degree burns after attempting a social media trend involving a NeeDoh cube, according to his family’s account shared in a video. A separate clip from fox32chicago notes “37” reactions as the story spread, underscoring how quickly a local scare can ripple through parent networks.
Doctors at Loyola Medicine say the NeeDoh toy was never meant to be heated, and that the gel inside can reach extreme temperatures when microwaved. The popular squishy toy exploded after Caleb put it in the microwave, Loyola Medicine later reiterated in a separate report, noting that staff at the burn center have been caring for his injuries. The company that makes NeeDoh, Schylling, has stressed that the product is safe when used as directed and that microwaving it is explicitly not recommended.
Inside the “microwave” trend kids are copying
The stunt that injured Caleb is part of a broader “microwave” trend that has been bouncing around TikTok and other platforms, where kids heat sensory toys to see them swell, glow, or burst. Clips show NeeDoh cubes and similar gel-filled balls being zapped for a few seconds, then sliced open or squeezed for the camera. A family that shared their story on Instagram said their child followed a viral social media trend that involved heating a gel-filled sensory toy in the microwave, and that the toy explosion left him badly hurt, as described in a sensor-tagged reel.
The trend has grown so alarming that even political figures are amplifying warnings. A post labeled “⚠️ URGENT PARENT ALERT: THE DANGEROUS ‘MICROWAVE’ TREND ⚠️” describes how heating these toys can cause deeper and more severe burns than parents might expect, urging adults to talk to kids before they try it, according to an URGENT campaign-style post. The warning notes that what looks like a quick, flashy experiment can, in reality, spray superheated gel across a child’s face in a fraction of a second.
What Caleb and his mom say about the moment everything went wrong
Caleb has been surprisingly candid about what happened, explaining that he did not realize he was stepping into a viral challenge until it was too late. “It’s like a stress toy, and I didn’t know it was a trend on TikTok before. Because my friend did it before, but she didn’t get hurt,” he said in one interview, describing how peer pressure and curiosity collided in his kitchen, a quote captured in a Because-tagged clip. He has also described the toy simply as “like a stress toy,” something he had squeezed countless times without incident before that day.
His mother, Whitney Grubb, has filled in the rest of the picture, recounting the moment she heard her son screaming from the kitchen. Caleb’s mother, Whitney Grubb, told WLS that “He was crying and just yelling, ‘It burns, it burns,’” as she rushed in to find his face and chest covered in hot gel. She later said the aftermath was “the worst thing” she had ever seen, a detail echoed in another account that described how She had to rely on her training as a nurse at the center to help her son through the first hours of treatment.
A warning that goes beyond one Illinois kitchen
Caleb’s story is not an isolated fluke, and his mom knows it. Grubb says that while her son did not hear about the dangerous trend directly from social media, he still wound up a victim of it after hearing about it from a friend, a point she stressed in a detailed Grubb interview. “Thes” comments, as they appear in that transcript, underline how word-of-mouth can be just as powerful as a For You page when it comes to spreading risky ideas among kids.
An Illinois mom is now warning other parents about an online trend after her 9-year-old son suffered multiple burn injuries when he microwaved the toy, a message she has repeated in an An Illinois post that has circulated widely. Another clip, labeled with the same family, shows how the child had followed a viral social media trend that involved heating a gel-filled sensory toy in the microwave and that Now his family is urging others to keep these toys out of appliances entirely, a plea captured in a separate Now reel that also references sensor footage of the damage.
Hospitals, toy makers and other parents race to catch up
Medical staff and toy makers are now trying to get ahead of the next copycat. Loyola Medicine has shared an urgent warning that a 9-year-old was severely burned after following a TikTok trend, explaining that kids are heating NeeDoh cubes to make the gel more pliable and that the practice is extremely dangerous, according to a detailed Wednesday breakdown by Hughes and the Chicago Digital Team. Another summary of the case notes that a nine-year-old Illinois boy is recovering from second-degree burns after a social media trend inspired him to microwave a NeeDoh toy, a description that has been repeated in coverage referring to the child simply as a boy from Illinois.
Schylling, the company behind NeeDoh, has been pulled into the spotlight as well. Reports note that the manufacturer has emphasized the toy is meant to be squeezed, not cooked, and that the packaging does not suggest any kind of heating. The popular squishy toy exploded after Caleb put it in the microwave, Loyola Medicine said in a statement that has been widely cited in coverage of Caleb Chabolla, and the company Schylling has echoed that message. Meanwhile, another Mother has warned of a TikTok trend involving Needoh cubes that left her 9-year-old son with severe burns, telling reporter Marissa Sulek that the Needoh toys can firm up over time and tempt kids to experiment, a warning that has been echoed in a separate Mother write-up that also credits reporter Marissa Sul.
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