By League Collegiate Outfitters via league91.com.
Let’s Talk About Alcohol Poisoning
Here’s how the Mayo Clinic defines alcohol poisoning:
Alcohol poisoning is a serious — and sometimes deadly — consequence of drinking large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time. Drinking too much too quickly can affect your breathing, heart rate, body temperature and gag reflex and potentially lead to a coma and death.
If you’ve ever woken up with a hangover, you’ve tasted a bit of what alcohol poisoning feels like. It happens most commonly with binge drinking — something that happens all too frequently on college campuses. Beer Pong, shot contests, jello shots that taste sweet but pack a punch — it’s very easy to get carried away with these activities and find yourself unexpectedly drunk to the point of nausea, blacking out, passing out, or worse.
League team member Mary Ciammetti knows about the worse. Her beloved son Christian died as a result of alcohol poisoning in 2015. Her grief has led to action: with other members of the community, she founded the organization Don’t Stall, Just Call.
Don’t Stall, Just Call
This organization doesn’t focus on stopping college drinking; instead, it’s focused on educating people about alcohol poisoning and helping people understand what to do in an alcohol poisoning situation. In a Times-Herald article in February, she explained it this way:
“What’s really important about all of this is that we, in the state of Pennsylvania, have medical amnesty. It applies for underage drinkers. If someone is in an emergency situation involving drugs or alcohol, the student caretaker can make the call – either 911 or campus specific security phone number, the caller and the victim will not get in trouble for underage drinking. You won’t have your license taken away and all that.”
All too often, college students suffer and even die because their friends are afraid to get in trouble. The Don’t Stall, Just Call mission is to educate students that they are protected when they call for help.
What you can do? The above bulletin can be made into signs for doors, magnets for off campus housing & cards for students wallets! No longer will any student say “they didn’t know.” These bulletins display Campus specific emergency phone numbers & note referencing Medical Amnesty, if applicable. All schools can have these-just reach out to out DSJC Facebook page and let them know!
Don’t Stall, Just Call offers resources, recommendations, and tips on how to handle excessive drinking incidents. At the moment, the organization is focusing primarily on colleges and universities in the Delaware Valley (not far from us here in Bridgeport), with hopes to eventually expand through the rest of the country.
We hope you’ll share Don’t Stall, Just Call with any college student in your life. If you look at one Philadelphia college — Temple University — there are 80 students a year admitted to Temple Hospital for alcohol poisoning alone. This message is critically important and needs to be shared. We hope you will do so.
You can learn more by visiting the website, following Don’t Stall, Just Call on Facebook, and of course you can help by donating here.