
A 13-year old Michigan boy has spent more than a week in a children’s hospital after he was forced to do push-ups as a punishment in lieu of detention. Donell Dixon attends the David Ellis Academy in Detroit, and he was recently reprimanded for running through the halls and slamming lockers closed. When he was offered the choice of detention or push-ups, Donell chose the latter and is now suffering from Rhabdomyolysis, or over-exertion of the muscles.
Dixon claims that he did 100 push-ups while school officials are claiming that he performed 3 sets of 20 with water breaks in between. Regardless, his mother has met with an attorney, but none of the reports are very clear as to whether or not she’s pursuing legal action. My guess is that she will, seeing as her son has spent a week in a hospital peeing blood with a serious kidney ailment. But according to WXYZ ABC news in Michigan, both his mother and the school are praying for his full recovery, as they should.
News report including an interview with his mother after the jump, and I’m throwing this question out there – Are push-ups, or exercise and physical exertion in general, an acceptable form of discipline in schools when administered and monitored by a school official?


I don’t think his muscles would have been so tired had he not been using all that energy running in the hall and slamming lockers in the first place.
Ms. Oda Mae Dixon should not be concerned that her son is currently in the hospital, but rather the ridicule and daily ass whoopings he’s going to take because he can’t do 60 push ups in a day without being admitted into ICU.
“Are Push-ups A Barbaric Punishment?”
Not according to Mr. Buzzcut.
The fuck are “kitneys”?
And how out of shape is this kid that he can’t do 60 push-ups? I need answers!
this is the sofest pussy i have ever heard of. Grow a pair bitch boy.
So how long until Iowa offers him a football scholarship? Seems like he’s perfect for that program.
If I was China and I read this article, I’d invade. Seriously, that fatty needs to be scrutinized for being hospitalized for “doing” 3 X 20 pushups
Are push-ups an appropriate discipline? For something silly like what he did, yes. For a serious academic or disciplinary problem, then no.
But as basically everyone else has commented, if this kid goes to the hospital for a week for doing 60 push-ups (or 100, for that matter), he clearly had other health problems. The video shows at one point that this illness is most common to marathon runners. Not kids doing a pretty run-of-the-mill daily workout.
As for the legal stuff, if they did sets of 20 with breaks, I can’t see how the school will take a big hit. Especially since the kid chose to do this. It’s not like had a broken arm and they forced him to continue.
To answer your question: Yes. And this kid should just stop being a puss, rub some dirt on it, and take a lap.
Way to ruin it for everyone. Now we’ll have to go to detention, dipshit.
/Swirly
Is 60 push-ups too much ? Not according to my old Drill Sergeant. Granted, I’d do push-ups rather than get kicked any day of the week. Or up’s and downs, or mountain climbers or leg raises or…..
well you get the picture.
>Are push-ups an appropriate discipline?
Depends what your priorities are.
Do you want to simply punish as retribution or do you want some benefit to come from it?
Have the kid write 100 times, “I will not be a little douchebag and run in the corridor and slam lockers.”
The worst he gets is a hand cramp so he cant beat off 4 times a day.
He will also get much needed practice on his penmanship.
Thats a positive benefit. (the handwriting, not the jacking off)
Some schools use physical labor as deterrent: throw garbage on the floor or yard and you get yard duty cleaning it.
Our kids school using basic english as punishment: you sit in detention and you write a page (full, half, depending on what you did) about the rules you broke. If you try to half ass it, they make you redo it the following day.
Repeat offenders will at least master the english language by the end of high school.
Push up as punishment like doing laps or suicides is ok for sports teams since their goal is to fine tune your physical skills.
In school were they try to work on the brain and not the physique seems to me that you should have your punishment at least be useful academically in some way.
My nieces principal used to be a math teacher so his lunchtime detention is… you guessed it, math !!
Punishing for the sake of punishment is the answer for small minds.
So Tino, we should never, ever encourage physical fitness as something to be learned or practiced in school?
He could have chosen the detention, which would likely have included some kind of writing assignment or other academic-based activity. He chose the physical activity, and again, it’s not like they were requiring him to do anything all that exceptionally strenuous.