WASHINGTON — A pillow fight at the prestigious U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York left scores of new cadets injured because many of the participants brought pillow cases filled with heavy objects, according to news reports.
The New York Times was able to confirm the story with West Point officials, who told the paper the bloody incident had occurred on Aug. 20 after a summer of freshman training. The mass pillow fight is an annual plebe ritual on campus.
The hard objects were thought to be helmets, according to the paper, which resulted in 30 injuries, including 24 cadets with concussions, according to the school.
In interviews, cadets told the paper that one cadet sustained a broken leg, others had dislocated shoulders, and at least one cadet was knocked unconscious and taken away in an ambulance and had not returned to school, they said. But a spokesman for the academy, Lt. Col. Christopher Kasker, said all cadets had returned to duty.
24 West Point Cadets Concussed in Annual Plebe Pillow Fight #military http://t.co/5L5smyQEfD pic.twitter.com/i6AqTUFeLG
— WW3blog.com (@WW3blog) September 5, 2015
