Police were notified on Saturday after a high-school student fell seriously ill after a teacher allegedly subjected him to repeated punishments in the form of physical exercises.
The first-year culinary-arts student, surnamed Liu (劉), at Yung-Ping Vocational High School in Taoyuan was on Thursday diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis — the breakdown of striated muscle tissue and the release of myoglobin into the bloodstream — after being rushed to hospital.
Liu was in intensive care, where he was reportedly recovering.
His parents on Saturday filed a report with police, naming Liu’s teacher, surnamed Huang (黃).
A family member said Liu has a relatively slight build and so was quickly worn out when Huang had him do a large number of push-ups for failing to register properly on the first day of classes on Monday last week.
The following day, Huang had the entire class peel red onions and students were required to do a squat jump or a crunch for every gram they fell short of a 1.2kg quota, the family member said.
Liu, who only peeled 66g, was one of eight students required to do the exercises, his family said, adding that the student was doing the exercises for half a day, but was unable to finish, so Huang demanded that he peel an additional 1.5kg of onions and barred him from taking days off.
The family said that on Thursday Liu complained of muscle pain, but did not dare take a day off school for fear of further reprimand from his teacher.
Liu went to school, but the family asked that Huang not make him perform any physical exercises, family members said.
Huang ignored the request, telling Liu to run laps of the sports field while carrying bottles of water on serving platters, the family said, adding that he was given additional laps whenever he dropped a bottle.
At home that evening Liu passed brown-colored urine and was incoherent, his parents said, adding that they immediately rushed him to the emergency room of Taipei Veterans General Hospital.
School principal Huang Yao-lu (黃耀祿) said that the teacher started at the school two years ago after working in the private sector.
He said the teacher’s methods are strict, but effective, citing students who have gone on to win international awards for their cooking.
He added that the teacher will finish his current contract with the school at the end of this month.
“Teacher Huang has expressed his regret and apologies and has promised to take full responsibility, including covering medical expenses,” the principal said.
The school said it is investigating the incident and would decide after its investigations whether to retain the teacher.
Ministry of Education K-12 Education Administration official Yang Kuo-lung (楊國隆) said the ministry will also be conducting its own investigations at the school.
Humanist Education Foundation executive director Joanna Feng (馮喬蘭) said physical punishment in schools has long been prohibited.
“The ministry should also look into the responsibility of the school’s administration in regard to the use of corporal punishment there and make its report public,” she added.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not