Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

A corporate retreat for Decathlon employees has gone awfully wrong after staff dressed as superheroes improvised a water slide with washing up liquid and a carpet and burnt their genitals so badly they ended up in hospital.

The incident occurred on a farm in the commune of Salesches in the Nord department of northern France when the Decathlon employees dressed up as superheroes and Power Rangers and improvised a water slide with washing up liquid found in a kitchen and a carpet in the reception room.

They then reportedly slid down the carpet and burnt areas of their bodies, notably their “genital areas” according to reports.

Firefighters were dispatched from the nearby town of Le Quesnoy and assisted the burn victims – four men and one woman – at around 4:30am on Thursday (6th February) morning.

Although the firefighters deemed the burns to be “light”, the casualties were nonetheless taken to hospital, to the severe burns unit, “because of the location of the burns”.

The genital burns “required specialist treatment”. Local media report that the washing up liquid might have had a “severe chemical reaction” caused by the friction it had with the participants’ skin.

The incident reportedly took place in the reception room itself and the burns were explained by a firefighter as having been caused by a combination of factors.

An unnamed police source told local media that the Decathlon employees were “dressed up in Power Ranger outfits” and had “carried on the evening by improvising a tummy slide activity” in the room.

The police source added: “They took washing up liquid from the kitchen, set up the rubber carpet that was probably found in the room, and then, dressed in their costumes, they threw themselves one after the other on the carpet to do aquaplaning.”

The firefighter was quoted in local media as saying: “No doubt a combination of the rubbing against the carpet and the nature of the costumes they were wearing is what caused the burns.”

The police added: “They suffered from severe irritations over a large part of their bodies, with the appearance of vesicles and burns.”

They were evacuated to a hospital in the city of Lille (the ‘Centre hospitalier regional universitaire de Lille’) where they are understood to be recovering.

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