A new internet craze – where two individuals take turns to punch one another in the chest until one gives up – has killed a young English father of a three-year-old.

Tributes are flooding in for Tommy Main, 23, who was rushed to hospital on Sunday, after he engaged in a so-called Punch 4 Punch challenge.

The game involves two people taking turns to punch one another until one gives up, with the loser taking shots of alcohol. The heavy blows are usually filmed so the footage can be shared online.

Main’s brother, Roy, was furious at friends who encouraged the violence.

“I’m hurting so bad I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again,” he wrote online. “For the people at the party who call yourselves friends, you should have stopped it, not try and film it. I hope you can’t sleep.”

Another brother, Ben, said the family was “devastated” by a tragedy.

“I can’t believe my little brother has lost his life,” he told the Daily Mail. “He was punched in the heart and it stopped beating. He died instantly.”

“He’s got a little girl and she doesn’t know yet. How do you tell a three-year-old her dad is dead? She doesn’t even know what it means.”

A tribute page on Facebook, set up by Tommy Main’s best friend has received 1,555 “likes”.

Police are treating Main’s death as “unexplained” and the results of his post mortem examination could take up to six weeks.

A 20-year-old man has been arrested in connection to the death, police have confirmed.

The Punch 4 Punch trend follows on from Neknominate – where people drink huge amounts of alcohol and film themselves engaging in increasingly risky activities, before nominating friends to one-up them – which was linked to a number of deaths in the UK.