German Teens Guzzle Extreme Hot Sauce, End Up in Hospital

BERLIN – Officials in Germany say eight teenagers were hospitalized after a test of courage in which they drank a chile pepper sauce more than 200 times hotter than normal. The Red Cross in the southern city of Augsburg says that 10 boys, aged 13 and 14, year drank the sauce Wednesday morning, apparently in school.

The German news agency DAPD quoted the Red Cross as saying the boys complained of feeling sick, and eight were taken to a hospital. They were to be kept in overnight for observation.

The Red Cross said that on the Scoville scale, which measures the hotness of sauce, the sauce measured 535,000 – compared to 2,500 for normal Tabasco Sauce.