Hesitation exhibits fear of punishment, not safety
Commentary
Hayley Martin
Issue date: 4/15/10 Section: Opinion
College students today fear punishment for their wrong doings more than they fear safety concerns.
This past weekend, my roommate drank far too much alcohol for her small body to handle.
I had to go pick her up from a party across town, where she was hysterically crying, and as she was telling me about what happened on our way home, she would repeat the same three facts over and over. It was like she was "10 - second Tom" from 50 First Dates.
Once I finally got her home, she started getting sick. Eventually, she fell, momentarily passed out and started convulsing.
She would be unresponsive for a few second after the convulsions stopped, come to and would talk to us for a minute or so and then it would start all over again.
When the convulsions started, another roommate of mine called 911 and got an ambulance.
While the EMTs were working on my drunk roommate, the police asked my other two roommates and me some questions and took my information as being a witness.
Because my roommates did the right thing and called for medical help, our drunk roommate will suffer no legal or university punishments for her actions. However, her medical bill will most likely be punishment enough.
But this makes me wonder: If a 19-year-old participating in underage drinking and getting alcohol poisoning gets off scot-free because her roommates did the "right thing," police officers and EMTs must see the horrific consequences of people not getting medical help for their friends who were in the same situation as my roommate far too often.
Jack Phoummarath, an 18-year-old, who was a member of Lambda Phi Epsilon at the University of Texas at Austin, died from alcohol poisoning.
He drank too much the night of his initiation, and instead of calling for an ambulance, his fraternity brothers drug him up stairs and let him "sleep off" his drunken state after he passed out.
When medical help was finally requested 16 hours after Phoummarath was placed on a couch and forgotten about, his blood alcohol level was .6 percent. The legal blood alcohol level in the United States is .08 percent.
This past weekend, my roommate drank far too much alcohol for her small body to handle.
I had to go pick her up from a party across town, where she was hysterically crying, and as she was telling me about what happened on our way home, she would repeat the same three facts over and over. It was like she was "10 - second Tom" from 50 First Dates.
Once I finally got her home, she started getting sick. Eventually, she fell, momentarily passed out and started convulsing.
She would be unresponsive for a few second after the convulsions stopped, come to and would talk to us for a minute or so and then it would start all over again.
When the convulsions started, another roommate of mine called 911 and got an ambulance.
While the EMTs were working on my drunk roommate, the police asked my other two roommates and me some questions and took my information as being a witness.
Because my roommates did the right thing and called for medical help, our drunk roommate will suffer no legal or university punishments for her actions. However, her medical bill will most likely be punishment enough.
But this makes me wonder: If a 19-year-old participating in underage drinking and getting alcohol poisoning gets off scot-free because her roommates did the "right thing," police officers and EMTs must see the horrific consequences of people not getting medical help for their friends who were in the same situation as my roommate far too often.
Jack Phoummarath, an 18-year-old, who was a member of Lambda Phi Epsilon at the University of Texas at Austin, died from alcohol poisoning.
He drank too much the night of his initiation, and instead of calling for an ambulance, his fraternity brothers drug him up stairs and let him "sleep off" his drunken state after he passed out.
When medical help was finally requested 16 hours after Phoummarath was placed on a couch and forgotten about, his blood alcohol level was .6 percent. The legal blood alcohol level in the United States is .08 percent.
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