11 Chinese sales staff hospitalised on gruelling boot camp after urine turns brown
Almost a dozen employees from a sales firm taken to hospital and some require kidney treatment during physical training that included carrying heavy logs
A third of the staff at a sales company in eastern China who took part in a training “boot camp” last week ended up in hospital after their urine turned brown, according to a local newspaper report.
Eleven out of 38 staff from the firm in Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, had to be hospitalised during the four-day “development training” trip last Tuesday to Friday, Qianjiang Evening News reported on Monday.
There were still eight employees in Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine by Sunday evening, it reported.
One of the employees, surnamed Song, told the newspaper the sales company – which was not named but based in Xiasha district – sent new staff for “pre-employment development training”, arranged by an unnamed training organisation.
The second day of the training was more strenuous than the first, and involved teams of staff carrying logs, according to the report.
“Those who failed to complete 300 squats were required to carry the log while running around the site for 10 laps, 200 metres per lap,” Song was quoted as saying.
On the second night, the report said, Song noticed his urine had turned darker. Later, he could not bend his knees and arms, and was taken to hospital for tests, after which he and others were referred for kidney treatment.
“The doctor said the training is extremely intensive, and generally at least eight people are needed for the log training and we only had half,” Song was quoted as saying.
The training organisation told Qianjiang Evening News the training was carried out according to regulations and participants had been notified of its intensity beforehand.
“Participants can ask to abstain,” an unnamed staff member at the training organisation told the newspaper. “We were just being entrusted to organise the training by that sales company.”
The sales company had yet to comment, the report stated.
