Italian motivation day gets too heated

A "motivation day" organised by one of Italy's biggest real estate agencies ended with nine staff needing hospital treatment after walking barefoot on a bed of hot coals.

The motivational trainer, Alessandro Di Priamo, said the salespeople from the Tecnocasa agency had suffered light burns.

He claimed the hotel near Rome where the exercise was held used the wrong kind of wood and some artificial coal without him knowing. "I myself walked first on that bed of burning coals and didn't feel anything – that same evening I went for a 16 km run," he said.