Children on Alcohol

This Blog Post was originally published on the platform "writelier" (formerly "co-writers" and "200wordsaday"). Sadly the blogging platform was discontinued. I downloaded all my blog posts and prepared them to be republish them here.

As I have written recently, I was on duty at the Oktoberfest in Hartberg. And of course, at such events, there is lots of alcohol. Luckily this time, we didn't have any real alcoholic incidence. Just the average drunken people. :)

Anyway, a few years back I was on duty while the Oktoberfest was fully engaged. I wasn't directly at the event, but at our base. Later in the evening, we were called from our colleagues, at the site, that they had to deal with an unconscious boy. Maybe 15 years old, if I remember correctly.

And by unconscious I mean it. He didn't respond to pain stimulation, which we normally use to wake up really drunken people.

Load and go as always, and we were off to the nearest hospital with childcare. We arrived pretty quickly.

As it was relatively cold that night, the boy wore a sweater. Obviously, to applicate and write an ECG (electrocardiogram) the sweater needed to be taken off.

One of the nurses took his arms and put them facing upward, so we could pull the sweater over his head. As soon as the hands were up, he started vomiting.

The nurses dress, normally white, had now some serious touch of black on it. She was a little bit shocked at first, but I think it wasn't her first time and it wasn't mine either, so we continued to undress this boy.

You might ask now, why was his upchuck black? Well, Whisky Cola anyone?

In Austria, children are allowed to drink alcohol at the age of 16. But with one condition: only low-level alcoholic drinks like wine and beer.

Back to the boy. 15 years and Whisky Cola.

As I drink Whisky myself, I know that it doesn't have a "low alcoholic level" and obviously the body of the boy was overwhelmed. Sure, he also drank way over his level and way over his thirst.

But how in the first place did he get this "hard stuff"?

Sadly at such events identity cards aren't checked as much as they should be. Or, they've got an older friend how organised them "hard stuff".

Either case is more than shocking. Not only does an alcohol-intoxicated person occupy an intensive care bed which is probably expensive by itself more than enough, no sometimes they just don't learn from their mistakes.

By the way, at the age of 18 children "grow" to adults in Austria, at that age they are fully responsible for themselves and can drink what they want.

It's horrifying driving around such drunk kids. Sometimes they are close to die!

We've got a serious problem with alcohol abuse here in Austria and basically no one is interested in it.