21 shots + 21st birthday = dead

[proud2BlibKansan]

SUGAR CREEK, Mo. --
An investigation is under way after a 21-year-old man died after a night of heavy drinking.

Police said Alberto Betancourt died of apparent alcohol poisoning a day of celebrating his 21st birthday with family and friends at Sticks and Stones bar in Sugar Creek on April 7.

KMBC's Peggy Breit reported that the town's Police Chief Herb Soule is worried the trend might continue.

Investigators said that Betancourt and his friends had been drunk when he arrived. He had a fifth of whiskey and been drinking it all evening. Investigators said he had been encouraged to have 21 drinks to mark his birthday.

After some time, police said that Betancourt was falling asleep at his table. He was escorted outside, but his friends were not ready to leave the bar. They left him outside during a cold night for half an hour, said investigators.

Betancourt was taken to the hospital with a body temperature of 86 degrees, police said.

Soule said Betancourt's blood-alcohol level .459.

more . . . http://www.kmbc.com/news/23310166/detail.html

[paulsby]

1. .459 is impressive

i dealt with a .464 once.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I thought you died at .4

:shrug:

[NeedleCast]

13. Depends on your tolerance

[Johonny]

18. LD50

Is the amount of a toxic substance required to kill half the members of a tested population after a specified test duration.

[paulsby]

26. correct

and just like everything else there is a bell curve of sorts where a very small # of people will die with significantly less, and a very small %age with a significantly more, and most people falling into the peak of the curve

this guy was OBVIOUSLY a practiced drunk. he was also driving a stolen car and tried to take off on me.

[Fumesucker]

2. Nobody ever died from 21 bong hits..

And yet alcohol is legal and pot is illegal..

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/obama-marijuana-legalization-122308

Meanwhile, economists have been making the beer argument. In a paper titled "Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition," Dr. Jeffrey Miron of Harvard argues that legalized marijuana would generate between $10 and $14 billion in savings and taxes every year -- conclusions endorsed by 300 top economists, including Milton "Free Market" Friedman himself.

And two weeks ago, when the Obama team asked the public to vote on the top problems facing America, this was the public's No. 1 question: "Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?"

But alas, the answer from Camp Obama was -- as it has been for years -- a flat one-liner: "President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana." And at least two of Obama's top people are drug-war supporters: Rahm Emanuel has been a long-time enemy of reform, and Joe Biden is a drug-war mainstay who helped create the position of "drug czar."

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. AMEN

[callous taoboy]

14. Beat me to it, Fumesucker!

I watched alcohol destroy my aunt and uncle, brain damaged by 60, dead by 70.

[Echo In Light]

15. +1000

[NM_hemilover]

23. LOL..no kidding and the bar parking lots are always full

[Froward69]

24. cept smoking oneself straight

I have done that and it feels like such a waste.

that kid should have done 21 mixed shots, starting from sober. like 1/2 whiskey and 1/2 Lemonade. along with plenty of water. Tragic society does not acknowledge one can kill oneself with alcohol.

[Berry Cool]

5. His friends left him outside during a cold night for half an hour?

Some friends.

This "21 shots on your 21st" thing has to go. They try to make people do it as fast as they can, and all that does is increase the danger of alcohol poisoning.

Isn't it funny that his friends chose to stay inside drinking even after he got thrown out in the cold.

[gmoney]

28. great friends

Insist on poisoning the guy before leaving him in the cold to die.

Hope someone is charged with something... reckless endangerment? manslaughter?

Oh wait, read further down... the guy had a 2-year old son? So these people fucked up two lives (at least)... he was going to start college in the fall, too.

Now I realize the guy could have said no, but it sounds like it got to the point where people were basically pouring drinks down his throat. Why the bar kept serving these people is incomprehensible.

I've never understood "competitive drinking" like this, and the perverse pride of having the worst hangover ever, dude. (Or of inflicting the worst hangover ever on your friends.)

[brewens]

6. A guy passed out where I live one time and his buddies did

what anyone would do and threw him in a dumpster. It was at a local concert in the park bash. I was part of the beer distributor crew and they found him when we were shutting everything down. He woke up in the hospital but was just fine.

[blogslut]

7. That's just fucked up

21 shots? I don't care how large the person or how high their tolerance, that's insane.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. And his friends would have laughed the whole thing off had he survived

That thought gives me the chills.

[blogslut]

10. I don't know the law there

But I do know that had I been his server, I would never had let it go that far. An establishment isn't supposed to even serve a person if they enter intoxicated. Normally, I despise holding bars responsible for the bad choices of their patrons but I'm shocked nobody 86'ed the guy when his head started hitting the table.

[Fumesucker]

12. He was escorted outside at that point..

According to the article..

[Maine-ah]

16. bartender here - in full agreement. wtf were they thinking?

[liberal N proud]

9. Hypothermia is probably a factor here

His friends left him out in the cold while they continued to party.

[Historic NY]

11. Who escorted him outside the management or his friends?

[Shell Beau]

17. Wow. So stupid. So sad.

[Pavulon]

19. Every year this happened when I was in undergrad

generally females. Later I found out that is because their liver is smaller than a mans and far less tolerant of this idiotic behavior. Still very sad to happen to someone who is that young.

[Pavulon]

20. dupe

dupe

[NeedleCast]

21. It appears that you can fix stupid after all

Or, at least death can do it for you.

[Dogtown]

22. "So it goes..."

[tabasco]

25. I was pretty stupid when I was 21.

People should show more compassion.

[Nordmadr]

27. Yeah, he may have been stupid but death didn't have to be his

lesson. It is the luck of the draw sometimes. You have to be fortunate to live long enough to learn your lessons.