A grieving father has issued a warning to others after his 18-year-old son hanged himself while trying to perform a dangerous sex act.
John Veilleux was stunned to find his son Alex hanging from a beam in the family’s garage in Mount Vernon, Maine last week, his clothes in a pile on the floor.
‘There he was,’ Veilleux told WGME. ‘Just disbelief.’
Veilleux cut him down and performed CPR, but was unable to save Alex’s life.
![John Veilleux, above, has now issued a warning about auto-erotic asphyxiation](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/08/12/21/4F0CA8F500000578-6053023-image-m-77_1534104086930.jpg)
John Veilleux, right, has issued a warning to others after he found his son Alex, left, hanging in the family’s garage in Maine last week after the 18-year-old attempted a dangerous sex act
![Veilleux initially thought Alex, who had recently graduated from high school and was planning to join the Air Force, had committed suicide, but his internet history later revealed he had been searching for information about auto-erotic asphyxiation](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/08/12/21/4F0CA8EE00000578-6053023-image-m-87_1534104354964.jpg)
Veilleux initially thought Alex, who had recently graduated from high school and was planning to join the Air Force, had committed suicide, but his internet history later revealed he had been searching for information about auto-erotic asphyxiation
The 18-year-old had recently graduated college and had plans to join the Air Force, Veilleux said, adding: ‘I don’t think there was a day in Alex’s life that he didn’t laugh and smile.’
The father’s first thought was that his son had committed suicide, but investigators searched Alex’s internet history and found he had been looking for information about auto-erotic asphyxiation.
‘They opened it up and it was opened on the page of the website showing how to do this,’ Veilleux said of the dangerous practice, which refers to the act of strangling or suffocating oneself for heightened sexual arousal.
‘I couldn’t understand why he would do it,’ he went on. ‘I think he felt that he would be in control and he could experience this, this Utopia or whatever it is, this euphoric moment and he would be all set and he could get himself down off the ladder. But he succumbed to it by passing out and was not able to wake up.’
![Veilleux showed the local TV station the garage where his son accidentally hanged himself in an effort to warn others of the dangers of auto-erotic asphyxiation](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/08/12/21/4F0CA8E600000578-6053023-image-m-84_1534104143994.jpg)
![The beam where Alex hung himself is shown above](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/08/12/21/4F0CA8D200000578-6053023-The_beam_where_Alex_hung_himself_is_shown_above-a-99_1534106419951.jpg)
Veilleux showed the local TV station the garage where his son accidentally hanged himself in an effort to warn others of the dangers of auto-erotic asphyxiation
![The father and son are pictured together on a family trip to Universal Studios in Orlando](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/08/12/21/4F0CA8CA00000578-6053023-image-m-89_1534104508987.jpg)
The father and son are pictured together on a family trip to Universal Studios in Orlando
Veilleux decided to speak out about his heartbreaking experience in hopes of preventing others from having to go through it.
‘We do our best to teach our kids the dangers of drugs and alcohol and reckless driving and teen pregnancies and all of these things, but this was a new one to me,’ he said.
‘I’d never heard of it. If we had, Alex would be with us today because he and I would have talked about it. We talked about everything.’