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  • 2016-12-20 (xsd:date)
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  • Prayers for Dakota (da)
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  • In December 2016, a message requesting that people pray for a young boy named Dakota who was allegedly airlifted to a hospital after having a seizure was widely circulated on Facebook: Although the verbiage of the message varied from post to post, all versions contained three basic elements — The boy's name (Dakota), a short account of an emergency situation (he was airlifted to a hospital), and a call to action (please forward this message): Many of the messages, such as the one reproduced above, also included some noteregarding a familial relation: Other messages were more specific and linked the prayer requests directly to another Facebook user. Those leads, however, also resulted in dead ends. Nearly every message about Dakota lacked credible information about where or when this incident occurred, but we did find a message posted to the prayer board of the Woodland Hills Baptist Church in Longview, Texas, which may have provided some additional details (i.e., the child's full name and location) about the situation: However, this information was inaccurate. Dakota Wells was not the name of the young boy who was airlifted to the hospital, but rather the name of the Facebook user who originally posted about the sick child. According to Wells, the young boy's name is Waylon, her cousin, and he was airlifted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center on 3 December 2016: A GoFundMe Page set up for Waylon Wells provided a little more information about the situation: Dakota Wells published pictures of Waylon being held by family members on 6 December 2016, three days after he was airlifted to the hospital. In early 2017, an update on his condition was published to the GoFundMe campaign's page along with clarifications pertaining to social media rumors. Waylon was released from the hospital at the time the update was published, anddoing [great]: Although this prayer request most likely refers to Waylon Wells, the cousin of a Dakota Wells, it's also possibly that this viral message refers to an incident in 2014, when a baby named Dakota when airlifted to a hospital in Bismarck. This request has also been conflated with one seeking prayers for a child shot with a nail gun. (en)
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