Parents, teach your children that guzzling alcohol of any kind can kill. Teach your friend’s children.

I’ve been exchanging emails with Hershel Privett’s mom. They are agonizing. His “pals” didn’t know that his unresponsiveness as they scribbled on his face and handled his genitals were signs that he was dying of alcohol poisoning.

One common feature of alcohol death in young males: their companions think it is funny to draw on the faces and genitals of their drunken companions. Without further research, both Gordie Bailey’s and Jack Phoumaranth’s were both scribbled on by their companions. I suspect there are more — it didn’t occur to me to chronicle it until my correspondence with Mr. Privett’s mother.

The face-scribbling practice, as illustrated here:

college Alcohol Deaths: Why?

In an article called Magnitude of alcohol-related mortality and morbidity among U.S. college students ages 18–24: changes from 1998 to 2001, by Hingson R, Heeren T, Winter M, Wechsler H. in Annual Review of Public Health. 2005, 26:259-279, the authors used statistical methods:

Estimated number of nontraffic injury deaths of all youth that are alcohol related:1998         2001    991         1151

Estimated number of nontraffic injury deaths of college students that are alcohol related:
1998         2001 
  327           368
Alcohol Overdose Deaths on Campus or Those Under Age
[decedent's name with link], [age], [DoD], [university] [BAC]