Underage Drinking Deaths

Adolescents are natural risk-takers. Studies have shown that the feelings of invincibility are marked during adolescence. [1] With alcohol, however, these feelings of invincibility rise even higher. The consumption of alcohol has been known to cause these adolescents to take on risks apparently without knowing any limits. Based on a study about the effects of underage drinking, children who have sought consultation for problems related to alcohol have a higher propensity to engage in risk-taking behaviors. This leads teens into very dangerous situations, oftentimes dangerous enough to cause unforeseen underage drinking deaths.

Deaths from underage drinking are one of society’s age-old adversaries. Underage drinking deaths have happened in the past, as long as youth and alcohol have mixed. For instance, in 1997, one of the stories in news archives included the three consecutive alcohol-related deaths in the state of Massachusetts. These deaths all happened within the same week, each involving underage drinking.[2]

Over the years, more and more cases of alcohol-related teen deaths have been recorded. In 2004, Adam Falcon, a student of St. Lawrence University and Jared Dion of the University of Wisconsin drowned after consuming overwhelming amounts of alcohol. Dion’s breath alcohol content reached lethal levels at 0.40. Then, another minor, Bradley Kemp died after mixing alcohol with cough medication. And then there was Matthew Paris who partied with his frat and since it was his 21^st birthday, he drank 21 shots of hard liquor, fell down two stories and suffered a debilitating brain injury.[3]

Apparently, these teens’ deaths have not been enough to send the message out, nor will they ever be. Just a week ago, a man was arrested for selling alcohol to a minor. The seventeen year-old Mary Hughes died from a head-on crash on February 21 this year. Autopsy reports show that Mary’s blood alcohol content (BAC) is .238, beyond the minimum limit for drinking and driving.

Approximately 5,000 young people, under the age of 21, die annually as a result of alcohol-related injuries; 38% of those deaths involve car accidents, 32% result from homicides, and about 6% (300 deaths) are from suicides[4] – the painful truth as presented in the Surgeon General’s Call to Action. If we become aggressive enough to fight underage drinking, this will be the number of lives we can SAVE from underage drinking deaths.