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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Workouts Too Tough, Says Chicago Trainee

CHICAGO (CN) - A paramedic and firefighter trainee says the City of Chicago and his EMS Fire Academy instructors injured him with cruel and unusual training.

John Locasto, 31, claims he suffered muscle breakdown, kidney failure and swelling in his right leg after academy instructors forced him to do strenuous workouts for two days without adequate water breaks.

After running up stairs holding two 25 pound bags, standing in place and enduring several 45-minute intensive workout sessions, Locasto says he experienced severe leg pain and bloody urine. He says he was sent to the ER, where he was subjected to tests which included having a 10-inch needle stuck in each leg six times.

Locasto says he spent 15 days in a hospital due to dehydration and compartmental syndrome - a life-threatening condition caused by nerve and blood vessel compression from inflammation in a limb.

Locasto claims that he "was not the first Fire Academy candidate (nor was he the last) who was exercised into renal failure at the City of Chicago's Fire and Paramedic Academy."

He seeks more than $50,000. He is represented in Cook County Court by Jeffrey Hart with Foley, Baron & Metzger of Livonia, Mich.

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