An incident at a Ferndale school has police warning parents about a dangerous choking game played by children.

A staff member at Coolidge Intermediate School discovered an 11-year-old boy getting up from the floor after another boy choked him on Nov. 3, according to a report in The Daily Tribune. The children said they were playing a choking game, according to police.

In the game, one child holds his breath and counts to five, and the second child squeezes their neck to induce unconsciousness, according to the paper's report. The game is a thrill that children usually play in secret, the paper reported.

One of the Ferndale boys' parents made a police report the day after the incident, and school officials soon realized the incident was part of a current trend, school representative Stephanie Hall said in the paper's report.

Hall said school officials want to alert parents of the trend.

Medical experts estimated that more than a dozen children have died nationwide in the past 10 months while playing the game, according to the paper's report.

"The interesting thing is that it has reached a national level of attention because of the number of deaths," said Dr. Frank McGeorge, an emergency room physician at Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital.

McGeorge said physicians have been alerted of the trend.