Alcohol Overdose Deaths on Campus

Gordie Bailey's death has been haunting me--I think because the young man in question is reminiscent of both my daughter and my nephew--his joy of life, his enthusiasm, his warmth.  Sure, he should have known better--but so should have the young men in the fraternity.

Lists of Kids Dying on Campus from  Alcohol Poisoning, 2004; what you cant do to change the underage drinking climate in your community.  There are two foundations, too: T-Dub.org, T DuB is an organization that deals with getting the message out about alcohol poisoning to teens and young adults.  It was started in honor of Taylor Webster who died of alcohol  poisoning at age 19.  BRAD21 B.R.A.D. (Be Responsible About Drinking, Inc) was founded by the family and friends of Bradley McCue, a Michigan State University Junior who died of alcohol poisoning after celebrating his 21st birthday

Drinking Culture and its  Cost--Fall 2004

How To Tell If Someone has Alcohol Poisoning:
• If the person is breathing less than twelve times per minute or stops breathing for periods of ten seconds or more, CALL 911.
• If the person is asleep and you are unable to wake them up, CALL 911.

this boy, for example, looks like he has passed out and would be not arousable.  Here's an example of where you'd call 911

• Look at the person's skin. If it is cold, clammy, pale, bluish in color, CALL 911..

Other Important Factors:
• Stay with a person who is vomiting! Try to keep the person sitting up. If they must lie down, keep them on their side with their head turned to the side. Watch for choking; if the person begins to choke, GET HELP IMMEDIATELY, CALL 911.

• If a person drinks alcohol in combination with any other drug, the combined effect could be fatal.  CALL 911.
• If the person is not in need of medical attention and is going to "sleep it off," be sure to position the person on their side placing a pillow behind them to prevent them from rolling out of this position. This is important to help prevent choking if the person should vomit. STAY WITH THE PERSON AND WAKE THEM UP FREQUENTLY. Even though the person is sleeping, alcohol levels may continue to rise, causing the person to become unconscious, rather than asleep. If at any time you can not wake the person up, CALL 911.
• Any person that has altered consciousness, slowed respiration, or cool, pale skin is experiencing acute alcohol intoxication (alcohol poisoning). This is a medical emergency and you MUST get help.  CALL 911.

August 21 and 22, 2004, Students in Fort Collins riot over--not much, evidently.  Bad behavior fueled by heavy drinking.

Late August, 2004: Samantha Spady left her hometown of Beatrice, Nebraska to head back to college at Fort Collins, Colorado.  Spady had had a successful high school career: cheerleading captain, senior class president and homecoming queen;  National Honor Roll, Spady also assisted with Red Cross Bloodmobiles and food pantry drives.

Thursday, September 3, 2004:  Samantha Spady planned a weekend of heavy drinking.   "I'm also going to get extremely wasted this weekend," she wrote at 7:04 p.m. Sept. 3, "not just because it's Labor Day, but because Colorado State plays Colorado in football tomorrow."

Saturday, September 5, 2004: Samantha Spady watched the CSU-CU game on television at a friend's house.  After leaving the friend's house, she lost control of her car.  She did not telephone the police, but called a friend, who picked her up. The friend's identity has not been made public, but has spoken to police, who report that Spady wasn't obviously intoxicated at the time of the accident.  The friend and  Spady went to at least two other houses.  Spady consumed alcohol at these houses before drank before she ending  up at the Sigma Pi fraternity house.   Police Detective Kristy Volesky said Spady began drinking at 6 p.m. on Sept. 5 and didn't stop until about 5 a.m. Sept. 6.  At some point in the evening, Spady switched from beer to straight shots of vodka. 

The day Spady died was not the first time she drank heavily.   And she was only one of many, many CSU students who do. In a website (a blog?), Spady was often pictured with booze and wrote about her frequent "partying".

Sunday, September 6, 2004:  Samantha Spady died early in the morning of the 6th.  Results show her blood-alcohol level was 0.436 percent at the time of her death--it may have been higher in the hours before she died.   A person is at risk of dying from alcohol poisoning at a 0.40 percent BAC.  The first report of her death at a Colorado State University fraternity (Sigma Pi) in Fort Collins, Colorado.  The young woman's body was not discovered until Sunday evening, by a fraternity member giving his mother a tour of the house. 

Monday September 7, 2004: The woman who died in Fort Colllins was a standout at her high school:  homecoming queen, senior class president and captain of the cheerleading squad.  She also died of an alcohol overdose

Tuesday September 9, 2004: Although Samantha Sapde died at a fraternity, her death was not part of hazing or initiation.  Heavy drinking is, however, a common fraternity initiation rite.   These problems have been so prevalent that one fraternity teaches its lodges how to manage the risk of such high-risk behavior.

Sudden vomiting is a feature of alcohol toxicity.  Really attractive, too.

The binge culture is big in Colorado..  "any underage students say the message is futile. They will drink, they say, and they will drink a lot - the law be damned.  "It is the stage of my life," says Brandon Pacheco, an 18-year-old at CU. "It's time to party.""   National marketing--the cable networks' "party shows", the Coors Beer twins,--has a lot to answer for, but so does local marketing with the $1.00 well drinks and coupons and competitions promising 25-cent shots.

Tips Alcohol Overdose (Post in every fraternity bathroom and group room
Signs and symptoms of alcohol poisoning

 

         
• Cold, clammy skin
           
• Rapid pulse
           
• Failure to respond to verbal stimuli
           
• Unconscious
           
• Irregular respirations/breathing
           
• Cyanosis-bluish color may be observed around lips, nose
           
• Vomiting while passed out--no return to awareness
           
• No response to physical stimuli (gentle shaking, stroking palms,light pinch)
         

.

the fact that this boy did not respond to being scribbled on, or the scent of the markers, should have been a danger sign to his travelling companions

First aid for alcohol overdose
       

         
• Do not leave alone
           
• Call 911
           
• Position victim on side
           
• If vomiting occurs, clear airway by sweeping out mouth of vomited
              material
           
• Do not give food or force fluids
           
• If affected person is able to verbally respond, determine if the
              victim
              
               
  1. has any allergies
                  
  2. is taking any medications
                  
  3. has any health conditions
                 
  
           
• Monitor breathing and heart rate
           
• If breathing stops, begin rescue breathing
           
• If breathing and heart rate cease, begin CPR
         

incontinence is generally a sign of very high BAC, and should be regarded as a danger signal, not a joke

Thursday, September 16, 2004:  Lynn Gordon Bailey was excited to find some places to belong at his new school, Colorado University.  Coming from a small and cohesive boarding school, he was looking for some "brothers" to hang with.  He tried out for, and made, the lacrosse team (as a walk on), and he'd been invited to join the Chi Psi fraternity.   One of the rituals was to be taken high above campus, blindfolded, and made offered wine beer and hard liquor to drink.  Gordie complied. By the time the pledges returned, Gordie was hammered, and was escorted to the library and given a bucket.

Friday, September 17, 2004 1 am: Gordie was so insensible from alcohol that he did not rouse when his "brothers" wrote vulgarities on his face and body.  The phrases....included "It sucks to be you," "Penis ankle"....and "(Expletive) me." There were also drawings of male genitalia.  "Bitch" was written on the fingers of his right hand. Other phrases included an offensive six-letter racial slur."    Lynn Gordon Bailey was discovered to be dead around 8:30 am Friday morning.

September 29, 2004: In Norman, OK, there was a "Big Brother/Little Brother party at the Sigma Chi fraternity.  According to some informants, "Pressure is placed on pledges to binge drink at big-little night; it known for getting the "littles"  completely wasted." “Some fraternities make [pledges] drink more than one bottle [of liquor],” the informant said. “If you don’t get sick, you obviously weren’t doing what was supposed to get done.”  A former Sigma Chi pledge, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed such a practice, saying, “They’ll force you into it if you won’t stand up to them.”  Sigma Chi is the fraternity that invented an approach called "risk management" for fraternities--essentially, how to train boys under 21 how to behave so that there are not large legal fees associated with their behavior.  Blake Adam Hammontree was present at the fraternity event.  A police affidavit said that Hammontree,  a new pledge to the fraternity, had been drinking beer and a specific brand of schnapps with flecks of gold in it the night before, the affidavit said. Fraternity members interviewed by police said he looked like he was in an "obviously intoxicated state," and had to be helped to the bathroom where he repeatedly vomited.  Hammontree was so intoxicated that he had to be showered and put to bed, according to court documents.

Fraternity members interviewed by police said he looked like he was in an "obviously intoxicated state," and had to be helped to the bathroom where he repeatedly vomited.

September 30, 2004:  Sometime in the morning, Hammontree's body is discovered.
The members of the Sigma Chi fraternity talked among themselves and made several other phone calls before calling 911 at 10:48 am.  Hammontree's blood alcohol level was .42, over the potentially fatal 0.4% limit. Sigma Chi "brothers" telephone police to report that Blake Hammontree wasn't breathing. 

September 30, 2004: Despite freshman Gordie Bailey's death as a direct result of an alcoholic fraternity initiation ritual, the Colorado University fraternities want to reintroduce alcohol in the houses and resist  reducing freshman rush.

October 6, 2004: Cody Barrington, 21,  bought alcohol for underage fraternity brothers at the party where Blake Adam Hammontree died, and was arrested.

What to do
Can You Tell If You're Too Intoxicated?

Generally, you can't tell. First of all, alcohol impairs judgment, making your ability to reason difficult, especially at high doses. Second, it takes a while for all the alcohol in the stomach to travel out of the gastrointestinal system and into the blood supply, where it then reaches the brain and other organs. Depending upon how much you drink, how quickly you drink, and what else is in your stomach, it may take anywhere from about 30-90 minutes after you stop drinking, before you reach your highest level of intoxication. Although some drinking scenarios may require less or more time to reach the maximum level of intoxication, you can see that when you decide you have consumed enough alcohol and stop drinking, you will most probably continue to become even more intoxicated. Sweetly flavored alcoholic concoctions such as Jell-O shots, flavored brandies, schnapps or other drinks can go down easily and quickly but surprise you later on when they get into your brain.

Similarly, drinking "games" can be quickly fatal because large quantities of alcohol are often consumed over very short periods of time. Almost-straight alcohol drinks, such as EverClear are especially dangerous and should not be used at all.

Symptoms of Alcohol Poisoning

If you have any of the following symptoms, you are experiencing an overdose reaction:
• Vomiting
• Passed out
• Difficult to awaken
• Slow, shallow breathing

Would you want to find yourself like this?

What You Should Do

Don't let a person who has been drinking heavily "sleep it off." If they persist in falling asleep, wake them up. If they don't respond, it's time to call the police emergency number (911) and tell them you need an ambulance for a possible alcohol overdose. Do not assume your friend will simply sleep it off. When in doubt, call for help. Don't take a chance with your friend's life. If you know or suspect that other drugs may have been taken, be sure to notify at least one or more ambulance personnel. Alcohol in combination with other drugs accounts for about 30% of all drug overdose deaths.

Remember, the word is  intoxication.

In all cases, my deepest condolences to family and friends.

Underage Alcohol Deaths 2004
Underage Alcohol Deaths 2005
Underage Alcohol Deaths 2006

Signs of Alcohol Poisoning

Alcohol depresses nerves that control involuntary actions such as breathing, the heartbeat and the gag reflex that prevents choking. A fatal dose of alcohol will eventually stop these functions. After the victim stops drinking, the heart keeps beating, and the alcohol in the stomach continues to enter the bloodstream and circulate through the system. The victim may experience the following:

• Mental confusion, stupor, coma, unable to rouse the person
• No response to pinching the skin
• Vomiting while sleeping or unresponsive
• Seizures
• Slowed breathing  (fewer than 8 breaths per minute)
• Irregular breathing (10 seconds or more between breaths)
• Hypothermia (low body temperature), bluish skin color, paleness

Alcohol Poisoning Requires Immediate Medical Attention

Alcohol Poisoning Cannot Be Reversed By:

• Drinking black coffee
• Taking a cold bath or shower
• Walking it off

The victim must have immediate medical attention.
Call 911, stay with the victim to prevent him choking on vomit, and tell emergency personnel how much alcohol the victim drank.

These Children Died of Alcohol Overdose, So Their Parents Started Foundations:

Taylor Webster's memorial foundation.  Taylor died of alcohol  poisoning at age 19-- Now his family and friends are working  to get the message out, telling their stories and providing  information on alcohol poisoning and the signs and symtoms  of alcohol poisoning in hopes that lives will be saved.

Bradley McCue's memorial foundation.  On November 5, 1998  Bradley turned 21. . He celebrated  his birthday in a way that has become increasingly popular, drinking "his  age in shots". That amount of alcohol was lethal and he died  that night of alcohol poisoning.

Samantha Spady's memorial foundation. A 19-year old student at Colorado State University, Spady died of alcohol poisoning on September 5, 2004, "an unintentional tragedy."  The Spadys say the SAM [Student Alcohol Management] Spady Foundation will develop peer-to-peer counseling and other services meant to reduce the risk of alcohol abuse.

Gordie Bailey's memorial foundation Mission: to provide today’s youth with the skills to navigate the dangers of alcohol, and through education and promotion of self worth prevent alcohol poisoning, binge drinking and hazing. 

Kimberly Ostien's memorial foundation: "With binge drinking on the rise, we feel it necessary to get the message out on the danger of alcohol, especially excessive alcohol consumed in a short period of time.  Students are educated on drugs and alcohol but they will continue to experiment no matter what.  We want to educate on what to do when a friend falls down or passes out from drinking.  Often we want to put that person to bed to sleep it off and that is when the trouble can begin."  The card lists the information, above.

Comments

[Azygos]

Liz,

Excellent post with good information about when to call 911 for alcohol poisoning. I am curious about who wrote the pamphlet for UC Davis as there is a point in there I’m not sure I agree with from a medial care perspective. It may be that the authors felt that it was more important to get the information out rather than quibble over a minor (and unproved) detail.

I’m not sure where you got the .40 figure for a critical level but the emergency rooms I have worked in all had .30 as a critical level for alcohol poisoning. I have seen 13 and 14 year old children with alcohol poisoning stop breathing and need to be put on a ventilator. For that matter I’ve seen young adults and adults intubated and put on ventilators for alcohol poisoning.

One thing the pamphlet does not tackle is the mixture of Ecstasy (the drug) and alcohol. Ecstasy and other stimulants can interfere with the bodies antidiuretic hormone. This hormone governs the desire for thirst, and water retention. Alcohol causes one to become dehydrated, ecstasy accelerates this problem. When you mix ecstasy and alcohol you become dehydrated, sometimes fatally, because you lose the desire to drink fluids coupled with an actual loss of fluid. As the body continues to lose fluids and the persons temperature rises. The person sometimes experiences brain death secondary to extreme internal temperatures. One patient I cared for had a rectal temperature of 107, and died the following day.

Just something to think about before dropping that next ecstasy tab and washing it down with a beer.

[MIKE]

i was wondering is anyone could answer this... me and my buddy split a 40oz of vodka. I drank my half quite fast, probably in a half an hour. after a couple hours i vomited four times then went to sleep. What kind of condition do you think i was in? i am a 15 year old male who weighs 170 lbs.

[viyaz]

I feel very enlightened after reading your site. I enjoyed those pictures of people spewing and naked girls -_^. Please post more ^^v

[Danielle]

I'm really glad that u put this up its very moving, and very realistic. It proves how careless some people can be in their "golden years"

Another tragic case for the list: Matthew Pearlstone. Cornell student died March 17 while visiting at the U of VA.

[Bridger]

I live in montana, and it seems the only thing to do is to drink... This is speaking for the point of view of someone who is going on 21 (aug 29) for the curious... I was the son of a biker, and grew up at the parties and around bars... I do not drink heavily, and (due to actually listening to the stories) make it a point to fall asleep on my side, vomit when I need to, and all of the other such precautions... anyway, I would just like to state that I didn't see anywhere on here that says when intoxicated one should avoid playing in water (drink it, it helps hang over) but the effect of being in water, on the human body, is dehydration. As was stated earlier, alcohol dehydrates the body... If one's friend insists on using the restroom at any point in time, one should keep them out of the tub. Showers are not as bad as the tub, but in case of drowning, one should not let the use that either. If partying near a lake/pond/ocean/pool/other-form-of-body-of-water do not let them get in, play too near... Because, if one gets into a substance the dehydrates from the outside, and has consumed one the works from within, they are screwed... It happened to me once, not fun!

[Jerry]

This doesn't just happen at frat parties. We had an employee who drank too much while working a trade show. We didn't realize how much at the time. We were VERY lucky she didn't die. We really didn't know how bad it was until we were told she'd passed out in the bathroom. Rather than call 911 she was taken to her hotel room and put in bed.

[Jules]

Hi, I'm worried about my brother, he's 32 and definitely an alcoholic. My parents have been down to his house tonight and he was in bed, but didnt wake up (not that they tried to shake him or anything) they checked him for signs of cuts because he text his friend saying that he'd found blood when he woke up after heavily drinking earlier. My parents don't seem that worried, but I'm thinking he may have had an alcohol overdose. I know it's better to be safe than sorry, but what if he's just sleeping? As I've not seen him, I don't know what he looks like, but it sounds pretty bad to me. My parents found a bit of blood on the carpet, but only spots, so I thought he could have coughed it up or it could be vomit as they werent positive it was blood. Also, this morning he was round his friends house and was looking for alcohol in the middle of the night and apparently urinated on their carpet, so sounds like he was in an altered state too (more than usual). If anyone could reply ASAP please do.

[Millenium]

Drink till your drank point!!! But not over drunk line!!!

[benjamin]

See alchol is crazy they should take it away and legalize pot :)

[ashley]

the pic are ************************lol

[Brian]

OK.. first.. this was an interesting article with some good points and bad.. bein a 21 year old male (june 11) i have had my fair share of drinking and plenty of stories to go with it. I have been drinkin ever since i could remember from wine to liqour to beer. I stand 6'2" and barely weigh 150. I attended the University of Tennessee and all i can recall is lots of parties with beer and liquor and drugs. I have found myself blacked out many nights, waking up in wierd locations, and never seemed to vomit. I have mixed ecstasy, acid, weed, pills, and pretty much anything else with large amounts of beer and have never had a problem. But then again I also know when to call it quits, and thats where other people fail. So you cant really make judgements on mixtures of substances cause not every persons make up is the same.

Next.. you mention a few fraternities in your article and i would like to clarify one thing.. Fraternities are known for one thing.. drinking.. and drinking a ton.. kids who pledge for the fraternities you mention know this.. The UT chapters were well known for there parties and there pledge parties.. so basicall people should be smart enough to know these things and be able to quit when its time and not say, "Lets get another drink."

but once again.. nice article..

[Brian]

Oh and another thing.. everyone passes out from drinking here and there.. and some cant be woken up.. its happened to me.. i know this cuz i live with my girlfriend and she tells me the next day.. so you really cant tell if someone has alcohol poisoning unless you have a breathalizer or you just happened to be a doctor.. and vomitting cant really be consider as a symptom unless yes the person is passed out and does not wake up while doing it..