Well, my oldest niece is lucky to be alive

[thewayne]

She's 17 and will be a senior in the Fall. She's an A student, extremely smart, weighs about 100 lbs and has, according to her and as far as my sister knows, never drank. She went to a party to watch the last Sun's game and didn't call back when my sister sent her a text message and left a voice message (sister had been having a bad feeling about alcohol poisoning for three weeks). At 15 minutes to midnight or so, they got a call from another girl on my niece's cell that the niece is in the ER. No further information is provided, and subsequent calls to the cell are unanswered.

They get to the ER and find out she has alcohol poisoning. Her BAC was slightly over 0.24.

She went to a party and remembers having one drink, then she remembers nothing until she woke up in the ER. She didn't know where she was, but she figured it out quickly enough as she'd been cut out of her clothes and had a catheter inserted. I'm fairly confident that the drink was drugged. Without going into a ridiculous amount of story, police broke into the house that the party was at and subdued the kid who wouldn't let them in, and found my niece unconscious, on the floor, in a pool of her own vomit.

At the hospital, the doctor told my sister that there was nothing further that they could do, and either she would recover or she would die. My sister was not happy at the doctor's casual demeanor. They'd strung up some IV lines and given her some potassium, I'm guessing that her electrolytes were probably seriously out of whack. The doctor said that her BAC would only go down about 0.03 per hour, so they were in for a long night.


Well, she survived. This was on a Friday night, she went home from the hospital Saturday and basically was a vegetable for the weekend. She had finals on Monday and did OK, pulled B's where she is normally an A student. My sister and her hubby locked down the rules somewhat tighter and forbade parties for her, especially with the kids who were directly involved in this particular party.

Here's the kicker: the kid who was hosting the party? (his parents were out of town) My niece has known him since the 4th grade.

The boys involved actually had the guys to go to my sister's house and apologize. I would probably have been polishing my shotgun.


She's fully recovered, but I'll bet it'll be a long time before she drinks alcohol again.

Comments

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I've never been a serious drinker; in fact, I've only really been drunk maybe twice. I am very careful to control my drinking: one drink an hour, no more than 2-3 drinks total, minimum 1-2 hours before I drive. The two times that I've really been impaired, I think 'drunk' is probably too strong a word for my condition, I wasn't driving. Once was on vacation in San Diego when I had a monster-sized strawberry daiquiri, the other whilst house-sitting for a friend, I got a large pizza (deep dish from a place called My Mother's on 19th Ave & Indian School -- major yumm!) and had a bottle of an Italian sparkling wine with it.

But that was 10 years ago, and in places where I was in control. It's different now, especially with these date rape drugs. I'd be very paranoid if I were a parent.

[deborak]

Glad she's ok. I will say that the "lock down" attitude of the parents seems rather out of step with the reality of the situation. Your niece was essentially assaulted - she didn't drink herself into oblivion. And isn't the mom the 'wild' sister of yours? Karma, maybe?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Well, the lock down isn't that severe: has to be home by midnight instead of 1am, can't spend the night out any more. And yes, that's my one and only sister. She has recognized the karmic aspect of the situation. Kind of funny, in a way, except for the emotional toll on everyone.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

I never had that worry at parties, but that was because I only went to parties with people I could trust.

The funny part is that I would occasionally hear whispers about "those weird theater parties"— people thought that all manner of strange and scary things happened at them. Maybe they did, but they were utterly consensual if so, and if you got drunk they would make sure that you either had a couch to crash on or someone sober to take you home.

It's important to only drink in safe circumstances. And if you're only 100 pounds, it's important to obtain a big strong friend to be a visible threat in those kinds of situations.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

It's really a shame to be friends with someone for over eight years and presumably trust them, then have them either participate or instigate such an incident. It will definitely serve as a wakeup call for her, that is certain.

Like you, I only went to parties with people whom I could trust.