Chances are you've heard of Facebook's Lying Down Game, a completely pointless yet wildly popular activity which consists of lying down in random, awkward places, getting your photo taken and posting it on Facebook. Sounds harmless... Until you risk losing your job for it, as seven British hospital staff members found out. 

The Lying Down Game was created when Facebook first started, and spread like wildfire on the social networking site. It currently counts 66,294 members. The rules of the game are simple: lie on the floor or any other surface face down with your arms flat against your side and your toes pointing downwards ("Just as if you were standing, but vertically challenged", explains the site), get a friend to take your picture and then post it on Facebook. The more absurd the location the better. The more people involved the better. So far, more than 14,000 people have posted photos on Facebook.

Seven staff members of the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, England, who called themselves the "Secret Swindon Emergency Department group", posted photos, since removed, of themselves lying down on the hospital's resuscitation trolleys, ward floors and on the Wiltshire Air Ambulance Helipad during a night shift. If they thought it was funny at the time, their management didn't. The unfortunate seven were suspended and face possible dismissal.

Swindon hospital director Dr. Alf Troughton told the BBC that "The Great Western Hospital sets high standards for staff behaviour at all times and therefore takes any such breaches extremely seriously". The case will be examined by a formal disciplinary commission early October, he told France 24.

Do you think the hospital staff's conduct while on duty at a hospital was unacceptable? Give your opinion here.