Police have charged 14 students after a teenager had to have a testicle removed following a ‘hazing’ ritual on a US campus.
Tyler Lawrence, 19, had to undergo emergency surgery after doctors were unable to repair the damage.
He had been taking part in a series of demeaning initiation acts to gain entry to a fraternity at Wilmington College in Ohio.
The teenager and other ‘pledges’ were blindfolded beaten with knotted towels, with Mr Lawrence struck so hard in the groin he was forced to go to hospital.
The incident took place in October. But police have now filed charges 14 members of the all-male society, known as Gamma Phi Gamma.
Students who took part in the cruel ceremony were also forced to stand blindfolded in the basement of the ‘Gobbler House’, the society’s base, according to the charges.
They were then lied up and had to stuff their mouths with cheese, while rubbing heat lotion all over their bodies.
Doctors said they had no choice but to remove the student’s damaged testicle and also found bruises and welts all over this body.
But Mr Lawrence actually defended those who took part in a last year, claiming the incident was “not hazing.”
He told local TV station WLWT: “It was a freak accident more than anything. It definitely wasn’t meant to happen, not hazing whatsoever.”
According to US law, hazing is a punishable offence with a maximum of 30 days in jail.
It follows a long line of incidents at US universities and colleges where male and female students have been subjected to humiliating – and sometimes fatal – initiation ceremonies in order to gain entry to sorority or fraternity groups .
The Gamma Phi Gamma fraternity, founded in 1907, has since been disbanded.
