The tip of the cup
February 4, 2010 • Micayla Greathouse and Jackie Balzer, Staff Reporters
Filed under Feature, Top Stories
Vomiting, slow breathing, hypothermia and mental confusion are just a few symptoms of someone who has had alcohol poisoning. Drinking five or more standard alcohol drinks for males, and four or more for females within a short period of time, is the exact definition of binge drinking.
“Binge drinking is very common with high school students,” said Carol Groen, Hays Medical Center director of emergency services. “Adolescents often drink several alcoholic beverages very quickly resulting in a very quick and dangerous rise in blood alcohol concentrations. One moment they seem fine the next they are unresponsive. Many adolescents think it is a normal part of growing up, but unfortunately this underage binge drinking frequently results in injuries. Risk taking, which seems to be common among adolescents, is amplified when alcohol is involved.”
Groen said many students are taken to the emergency room where their alcohol blood level is tested, regardless of being admitted or not. Everybody’s body composition is so different that “way too much to drink” is different for every person.
“Not only do we see kids that have had too much to drink, but when they have had too much to drink the risky behaviors come out and that is when we see the motor accidents,” Groen said. “For girls this is usually when we see drugs being put into drinks and they don’t remember anything that happened to them. The drinking gets them started in these cascades. They always think it won’t happen to them and that it will be okay, but it does happen.”
For less serious cases, Groen said they are sobered up in the E.R. by sleeping it off while their breathing is monitored. However, she added it is also a possibility that students arrive to the emergency room too late and the alcohol has already begun absorbing into the blood stream, therefore there is not much doctors can do.
In other situations, if it is a serious enough case that the student should be admitted into the hospital, then the option of having their stomach pumped is a possibility.
Groen said a bite block is put into the patient’s mouth so that there isn’t as much of a struggle in getting the tube inserted. Then a 32 French tube is placed in the mouth. Groen said this tube’s diameter is similar to that of a quarter and has holes so that if pills were taken, they can be sucked out with other contents.
This tube goes from the mouth, Groen said, down through the esophagus and on into the stomach. Before the process can begin, doctors and nurses have to have verification that the tube is in the right place by listening with their stethoscope.
When the tube is in the correct place, Groen said it is then hooked up to a bag of tap water hanging from a pole and the water is pumped through your system until the stomach fills. Once your stomach is full, pressure pushes the contents of your stomach back up the tube and out into a separate bag on the floor.
This process goes on until the contents coming back up the tube are as clear as the fluids being put in the tube.
“If the patient is cooperative, this procedure does not take more than 20 minutes,” Groen said. “However, while the tube will not hurt them, it is uncomfortable and the patient will tend to gag and spit. Sometimes we have to tie the patients’ hands down so that the procedure can be done more quickly. There have been times where we have had to paralyze patients because they would fight to the point of not being able to do the procedure.”
Groen said if a situation occurs where medication in the form of pills was taken with the alcohol, then activated charcoal is used. This is a black charcoal material that absorbs the poison and is excreted through the stool in the form of diarrhea.
During this visit at the emergency room, Groen said the patient needs to be as responsive as possible making anesthetics not an option. Most students thoroughly remember their experience, therefore, not wanting to make it a habit of theirs.
“We have had kids write us letters apologizing for their behaviors because they are so not themselves when they have had too much to drink,” Groen said.
Groen added that with many high school students, reoccurring situations are seen when the drinking results in some type of accident, primarily motor vehicle accidents.
“There’s a reason why the laws are the way they are,” Groen said. “Lots of times high school kids don’t even have an understanding of what alcohol can do to their body. But if you choose to go out and do it anyway, never take an intoxicated, unresponsive friend home and put them in bed. It could be a fatal mistake. Always tell an adult if your friend has had too much to drink and continues falling asleep or is difficult to arouse.”
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