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Bathtubs of booze

By Chris Jefferies
October 18, 2009 at 1:30 pm

I’ve just been reading this article about the government crackdown on ‘binge drinking’. The £1.4 million campaign targeting young people saw over 3,000 young people stopped and 5,171 litres of alcohol confiscated by police.

That’s enough to fill around 62 bathtubs (I don’t recommend attempting this however!)

In recent times the media has been full of stories about Britain’s binge drinking culture. A quick search on the BBC News website brings up a slew of articles – ‘Binge drinking ups infection risk‘, ‘Youngsters drinking dangerously‘ and ‘Drink blamed for oral cancer rise‘ to name a few.

Do you think we have a problem? What could be done to prevent ‘binge drinking’?

Certainly from a first aid point of view alcohol produces a range of problems. Anyone unconscious due to alcohol should be placed in the recovery position, recov adult d.jpegotherwise they could stop breathing due to their tongue blocking their airway or due to them being sick. The UK charity Drinkaware has a good article about acute alcohol poisoning on their website.

Head injuries are also common due to alcohol-induced fights and falls. This can be especially dangerous as alcohol can hide the more serious signs and symptoms of a life threatening head injury. Certainly, if someone has hit their head you should never just dismiss them as “being drunk”, they need to be checked out at hospital.

Hopefully, an increasing awareness of first aid will help reduce the shocking statistic that one in 25 deaths across the world are linked to alcohol.

Anyone for a pint?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 1:30 pm and is filed under First aid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Jennifer Kelly

    Binge drinking is something that seriously needs to be dealt with. I am no innocent in all of this, I often refrain from drinking for months at a time and then go out and go mad over a period of 8 hours. It’s not right, and I think we need to be educated more, and certainly first aid is one way to go about it! Great Blog! xx

  • Jennifer Kelly

    Binge drinking is something that seriously needs to be dealt with. I am no innocent in all of this, I often refrain from drinking for months at a time and then go out and go mad over a period of 8 hours. It’s not right, and I think we need to be educated more, and certainly first aid is one way to go about it! Great Blog! xx

  • http://www.redcross.org.uk/ Chris Jefferies

    Thanks for your comments Jennifer :-) Certainly yes I think education is a way forward to tackle binge drinking. Many people are unaware of how much of a poison alcohol is and the long term effects it can have on our health.

  • http://www.redcross.org.uk Chris Jefferies

    Thanks for your comments Jennifer :-) Certainly yes I think education is a way forward to tackle binge drinking. Many people are unaware of how much of a poison alcohol is and the long term effects it can have on our health.

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Chris Jefferies

Chris Jefferies

Chris is a young volunteer in Surrey. He teaches first aid and does first aid at events.

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