PORTLAND (AP) – Induced fainting by middle school students looking to experience a “rush” has set off alarm bells in Cape Elizabeth.

Teachers and parents in the Portland suburb are warning students that they risk injuries and brain damage when they deliberately make themselves pass out.

The behavior became an issue last week when teachers at Cape Elizabeth Middle School learned students were going through a regimen in which they blocked the flow of oxygen to their brains, which caused them to lose consciousness. Students told staff members it gave them a “rush” or “good feeling.”

“It was a fad that was going through and we just needed to stop it,” Principal Nancy Hutton said.

Recent news accounts from South Carolina and Arizona described similar behavior among students. In April, a sixth-grader in New Mexico was hospitalized with a concussion after falling to the floor when two friends helped him faint.

In Cape Elizabeth, school officials talked with each class about the dangers of the behavior and sent an e-mail to parents explaining the fainting phenomenon.

The process involves deliberately hyperventilating, bending over and standing up quickly, and then holding the neck to restrict blood flow to the brain. Possible injuries include falling from fainting and brain damage from oxygen deprivation.

Hutton said no student has been injured or disciplined because of the activity. The main emphasis has been educating the students about the dangers, the principal added.

Hutton said Cape students stopped the behavior once they learned about the dangers. She complimented the work of staff members who got the information out and said she has not heard of any new incidents this week.

“We seem to have caught (the fad) relatively early,” Hutton said.