mmg.com.au

This frank account of one parent’s experience with underage drinking was received by The News. The mother’s intent, in publicly documenting the near-death experience of her son, is to warn others, raise awareness and apologise to hospital staff. It is confronting, frightening and an all too familiar story:

Recently my 16-year-old son went to a friend’s birthday party.

The friend and many guests were at least 18 years old.

The parents at the party tried to do the responsible thing and those old enough to drink or who had permission from their parents and brought their own alcohol were issued with wristbands.

My son left our house, promising me that he wasn’t going to drink while at the same time having a bottle of Jim Beam, bought by an older acquaintance, stashed in his bag.

We have had extensive and regular discussions about underage drinking and its possible consequences.

He had forged a note stating he was permitted to drink and signed it with my name.

About 9pm there was a loud knocking on my door.

It was the father of the birthday boy, asking me to come and get my son, who was extremely drunk.

I rushed to the house and found my son on the bathroom floor, virtually unresponsive and covered in vomit.

It took two big men, who had to struggle, to get him into the car.

I took him straight to Goulburn Valley Base Hospital.

His ‘‘global conscious scale’’ upon arrival at the hospital, which if he was conscious and alert should have been 15, was four. They were ready to intubate.

While in the hospital he ranted, screamed in terror and pain, frothed at the mouth, shook uncontrollably and vomited many times.

His airways had to be cleared of vomit regularly by suction.

He lay, covered in smears of black vomit, lapsing in and out of consciousness.

His breathing stopped many times as if he was too drunk to remember to do it.

His blood alcohol reading was 0.203.

The staff at the hospital told me that due to the level of his drunken state, his airways were compromised and had he lain on the floor too much longer he would have died.

Had I taken him home and put him to bed to sleep it off, he would have died in the night.

During his rantings, he said he’d skolled the alcohol as a dare.

He said people were clapping and chanting as he did so.

He also said they’d told him if he got drunk they would hide him.

Had they done this he would definitely have been dead today.

To those of you who allegedly dared him to skoll Jim Beam, I wonder how you would have felt going to his funeral and watching his family grieving.

I don’t think his grandmother would have survived it, as she has a heart condition and that would have finished her off, too.

I met a paramedic while at the hospital. He is also a parent at my son’s school and he once treated a boy of similar age to my son, in a similar state — the difference being this boy didn’t ever wake up.

He was discharged in the early hours of the morning as staff felt he was at a point where he could be monitored at home.

I have spent a basically sleepless night rousing him regularly, as instructed by the hospital, to make sure he was still responsive.

To the hospital staff, especially nurse ‘‘Loz’’ , thank you for your help and patience. Apologies to you and the doctor for some of the things he said to you while very drunk (and for the spit stuff he sprayed on you).

Apologies to those patients who were actually sick or injured and couldn’t get a bed as it was being taken up by a teenager who made a stupid choice.

Apologies to the other patients in the emergency department who were disturbed by his loud yelling and screaming and also to the parents who hosted the party and trusted the kids to do the right thing.

I’m sorry your bathroom was covered in my son’s vomit.

To my son, I hope the flashes of memory of the event that you may have, and the hangover you will have when you wake up this morning, (your hair still matted with vomit because you couldn’t stand up to have a shower when you got home), will prevent you ever doing this again.

To all the rest of you kids — binge drinking is a sign you are not mature enough to drink. When you are, learn to do it responsibly.

For now, go out and enjoy big time, but party safe. You don’t need alcohol to have a good time. Life is much more fun when you are in control of what you do and say and can remember the great times you have had while growing up.