Before You Assume Someone's Drunk
75Drunk, Sick, Dying?
No one would ever want to be responsible for another's death. But an act of omission could put you in the unenviable situation of having turned your back on a person who desperately needed your help and didn't get it.
Mr. Universe Assaulted by Police During Low Blood Sugar Episode
Linda von Wartburg
Dec 17, 2008 (Excerpted from an article originally published in Diabetes Health in April, 2007).
"Doug Burns was severely beaten by police during an episode of low blood sugar that occurred at a movie theater in Redwood City, California. Doug states that he remembers seeing his friend in the theater and then feeling that he was getting low. He hurried to a snack counter to find food but apparently was intercepted by a security guard who thought he was intoxicated, even though he did not smell of liquor and was wearing a medic alert bracelet.
The next thing he remembers is waking up while being given glucose by paramedics. He was surrounded by seven armed policemen who had severely clubbed him in the head and body, maced him, and handcuffed him, in spite of his medic alert cards and jewelry. The police had even brought in dogs.
Doug believes that had he been less well dressed or from a different ethnic background, the police might have shot and perhaps killed him. He comments that one of the worst things the police did was to call his young daughter and tell her what was happening to her father. The incident serves to underscore the need for better education of police officers and security personnel about how to distinguish hypoglycemia from intoxication."
This incident is not uncommon. Many diabetics have found themselves in frightening situations when their blood glucose levels fall. Symptoms that manifest themselves at such times include:
- mental confusion
- anger / frustration
- inability to communicate clearly (slurred speech)
- staggering
- drowsiness
- bizarre behavior
- smell of alcohol when none is present in the body
- rapid heartbeat
- double vision
If not helped immediately, diabetic sufferers may lose consciousness and can die if someone makes the decision that they aren't worth checking on. "He's drunk," they say to themselves, or "She's a drunk" or, if they know the person, "Oh, he's just drunk again."
A Personal Story
A friend of mine in college was born without an arm. He had lived at home all his life but, in his sophomore year, decided to get a place of his own near the campus. His friends helped him move into an apartment with a loft bedroom. It grew late and, before they left, the friends rested a tall bookcase, its flat back facing up, against the balcony that separated the loft from the ten-foot drop into the living room below.
My friend, prone to sleepwalking when in unfamiliar surroundings, walked up that bookcase - and straight out into nothingness. Waking up the moment he crashed to the floor, and realizing instantly that he was seriously hurt and couldn't get to the telephone, he began to yell for help. He yelled "Help me!" again and again, raising not a peep from an apartment complex filled with people.
Finally he thought to try another tack. "I'm not drunk, I'm hurt!" he shouted, "I'm not drunk, I'm hurt!" That brought an almost immediate response and a trip by ambulance to the hospital where his severely broken collarbone was treated. Later, several people, including his landlord, revealed that they had heard his first cries but assumed he was just another drunk college kid who would eventually pass out and shut up.
Being Thought Drunk Can Kill You
In many cases, people identified as drunk and left to die were not drinking at all but suffering from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), which is often but not always related to diabetes; a head injury (concussion, a fall, a blow to the head); Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia; epilepsy; heart disease; certain types of palsy; a drug reaction; sleep deprivation; eclampsia; dehydration, sun stroke; or any one of myriad other possibilities completely unrelated to alcohol.
The stories below could be about your beloved child, parent, sibling or spouse. The photos could be of your best friend, your revered teacher - or of you.
Never assume someone is "just drunk." Never leave anyone lying helpless and vulnerable, whether sick or intoxicated. If you cannot aid them yourself, call those who can.
Could This Be Your Dad or Brother?
Sources Cite Delay In Aid to Reporter: EMTs Thought Rosenbaum Was Drunk (excerpt)
By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
D.C. emergency medical technicians treated David E. Rosenbaum as if he were intoxicated and not the victim of a beating and robbery Friday night, a misdiagnosis that delayed treatment for the longtime journalist, fire department sources said yesterday.
Rosenbaum, 63, a recently retired New York Times reporter and editor, was taking a walk near his home in upper Northwest Washington when he was apparently assaulted and robbed of his wallet, authorities said. Rosenbaum, who was not drunk, died Sunday at Howard University Hospital, authorities said. Police had made no arrests.
Rosenbaum died from blows to the head, body and extremities, according to the D.C. medical examiner's office, which yesterday ruled the case a homicide.
Ambulance crew members told hospital workers they thought the man had been drinking, the sources said. Rosenbaum went through a triage area in the emergency room but did not appear to have been examined for at least an hour, the sources said. A hospital nurse did not begin to evaluate Rosenbaum until he began vomiting while on a stretcher in a hallway, the sources said.
Could This Be Your Sister or Wife?
Navy Wren suffering from diabetes was left to die on cabin floor after shipmates thought she was drunk (excerpt from London Evening Standard) Last updated at 01:07am on 27.02.08
Bright future: Graduate Emma Douglas joined the Navy as homage to her late father, a former Navy officer.
A Royal Navy officer was left to die in a diabetic coma because shipmates thought she was drunk, an inquest heard yesterday. Lieutenant Emma Douglas, 29, who had been ill for a week, collapsed on her cabin floor where she lay half-naked and struggling to breathe.
The door was open but the colleague who found her didn't seek medical help. Instead, the door was pulled shut and she was left. By the time a check was made 24 hours later, she was dead.
Yesterday, more than three years after her death, the inquest was told that colleagues had assumed that Miss Douglas was drunk despite the fact that she was health conscious and a light drinker.
Tests showed there was no alcohol in her body.
Could This Be Your Mum or Grandma?
Dying Molly's pleas ignored
By Anthony France
Published: 19 Jan 2009
WITNESSES ignored an elderly widow left dying in the street by a killer mugger – because they thought she was drunk.
Former architect Molly Morgan, 81, was walking to her local library when the robber grabbed her handbag and dragged her to the ground. She broke her arm and was left with fractures to her face in suburban Harrow, North West London.
The thief ran off but - more shockingly - at least one passerby walked by ignoring her cries as she lay helpless on the pavement for ten minutes. Police also revealed a number of buses packed with passengers drove past the scene at 7.40 p.m. last Thursday.
Two women on a power walk, who initially crossed the road believing she was drunk, finally stopped to help.
Molly died later in hospital. A post mortem gave Molly’s death as a subdural hematoma.
“When Mrs. Morgan was attacked she fell to the ground and we believe she was on the pavement for about ten minutes before anyone came to her aid. “Whilst at hospital, Mrs. Morgan told police that a man walked right past her and didn’t stop, even when she asked for help.
“It is our belief that this man, and other people in the area who didn’t assist the victim, may tragically not have realised that Mrs. Morgan had been attacked and was in considerable pain.
"We know from some witnesses that they had assumed she was merely a drunk on the street.
Active Molly, a member of the Royal Horticultural Society, was attacked as she walked to a lecture about London buildings at her local library in Kenton. The widow had been married to her husband William for 40 years until he died in 1997.
Her daughter Hilary said: “My mum was so active and full of life. I still can’t believe she has been taken away from me.”
What Might You Assume?
First Aid for Seizures
As mentioned above, epilepsy is only one disability or situation among many that might manifest as drunkenness. Since I've included the video, I wanted to add this first aid information from the United Kingdom website, http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/firstaid.html.
Tonic-Clonic seizures
The person loses consciousness, the body stiffens, then falls to the ground. This is followed by jerking movements. A blue tinge around the mouth is likely. This is due to irregular breathing. Loss of bladder and/or bowel control may occur. After a minute or two the jerking movements should stop and consciousness may slowly return.
Do...
- Protect the person from injury - (remove harmful objects from nearby)
- Cushion their head
- Look for an epilepsy identity card or identity jewellery
- Aid breathing by gently placing them in the recovery position once the seizure has finished
- Be calmly reassuring
- Stay with the person until recovery is complete
Don't...
- Restrain the person
- Put anything in the person’s mouth
- Try to move the person unless they are in danger
- Give the person anything to eat or drink until they are fully recovered
- Attempt to bring them round
Call for an ambulance if...
- You know it is the person’s first seizure
- The seizure continues for more than five minutes
- One tonic-clonic seizure follows another without the person regaining consciousness between seizures
- The person is injured during the seizure
- You believe the person needs urgent medical attention
Epileptic Recovery Position
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Although medical alert jewelry would not have saved Mr. Rosenbaum or Mrs. Morgan, it can help people with diagnosed diseases, disabilities, and allergies alert EMTs and others that they are not drunk. Buy them and wear them at all times, even if you have never had an episode that has left you vulnerable or unconscious.
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Comments
You're welcome, JG. For reasons I don't totally understand, I felt obligated to write this. It was only later, after I'd started the hub, that one of my brothers told me he'd experienced a 'near miss.' He began to get belligerent and confused but realized just in time that he was heading into a low blood sugar episode. Fortunately, he was with a friend and had immediate access to orange juice but feels that, had it happened elsewhere, he could have been in serious trouble.
Until he told me that story, we had never discussed his diabetes, which was fairly recently diagnosed. MindField mind reading, perhaps?
This is a really nice hub and very informative. My mother was diagnosed with diabetes and if her blood sugar gets too low she goes into seizures. She has gone into a seizure at the dentist office. I am just so grateful that my sister is a dental hygienist and was working at the office that day. Thanks again for letting people know what to look for and cautioning against just assuming.
Thanks very much, Whikat. It's terribly frightening, isn't it, to think of our loved ones at the mercy of their disabilities and of those around them who may make snap - and, consequently, often wrong - assumptions.
I learned a little trick not so long ago that I wish more people would practice. When thoughts come into my head that absolutely cannot be verified (e.g., that man is mean because he is scowling, the clerk was trying to cheat me when she rang the item up wrong, she's a bad parent for letting her child behave that way, the interviewer thinks I'm an idiot), I say instantly to myself: "Meg, that thought is meaningless." It erases from my mind a worthless and unprovable opinion and I am then free to think more sensibly - with much better results!
Thank you Mindfield for the little trick you use. I will bookmark your hub as a reminder. I know that changes start from the inside before they are able to change our outside world.
Wow this is an amazing hub. Everyone should print this out and put on their fridge.
Thanks very much, Tom. It breaks my heart to think of us as so callous we'd even ignore an elderly woman imploring passersby for help. When did we become so lacking in empathy? And can we train people back into at least a modicum of empathic thought and behavior?
It's an uphill battle. People are so busy, isolated, and fearful. You are on the right track. Education is the key.
Great hub! Sad, but true nonetheless. Tom pretty much says it all, we're all so busy, isolated, and fearful. But we've done this to each other. How do we undo the bad choices?
Thanks, Tom and MissJamie, for your cogent comments. Perhaps it's the "too many rats in a cage" syndrome; television, which inures us from an early age to cruelty and apathy; nobody home (or too busy when they get there) to talk with children about kindess and the need to set self aside at times in order to make good moral decisions.
In any case, education seems the only path away from bad choices and toward a sane and humane way of life for all.
The same thing almost happened to my cousin. Unfortunately for her, she had been at a bar with friends. Her blood sugar dropped dangerously low and she started to pass out. The bouncer said - "take her home - she'll sleep it off." Her friend kept yelling, please call 911. They finally did. She wasn't falling down drunk, but she was near death from low blood sugar.
New Day: That's so very frightening, isn't it?
Perhaps all employees of bars (or any place where drinks are served) should be trained to understand and look for the many symptoms that can mimic drunkenness. It would be a good place to start, anyway, to help spread the word.
MIndfield, this is a good reminder not to rush into judgement on people. How callus and inhumane we can become. And when you think about it, even drunks deserve help when they need it.
DM, how true on all counts. Thank you for saying so.
To be absolutely clear, I want to repeat what I said in the body of the hub: "Never assume someone is 'just drunk.' Never leave anyone lying helpless and vulnerable, whether sick or intoxicated. If you cannot aid them yourself, call those who can."
Let me also add this:
An alcoholic suffers from a sickness; a person who is not an alcoholic but has drunk too much is as vulnerable under those circumstances as anyone with an illness or disability. People who cannot think for themselves should never be left in an unsafe place where terrible things, including death, can happen to them while they are, for all intents and purposes, "out of their minds."
Get help. Call 911. Do whatever you have to do to ensure safety for anyone unable to make that decision for him/herself. And wake up the next morning knowing that you did the right thing.
Am I the only one who thinks that it is appalling that someone would leave a drunk person alone? I can't believe that someone would be beaten or mistreated for being drunk. If alcoholism is also considered an "illness" in most places, isn't it true then that a drunk individual is also "sick" and in need of treatment of some kind? What about alcohol poisoning? This type of treatment of unwell individuals is reprehensible in any civilized country in my opinion!
This hub is so pertinent to raising awareness of how to help people in emergencies. I invite everyone to check into EIS....emergency information services. A diabetic that joined one day called the home office to report that the emergency sticker attached to his driver's license alerted the EMS people to the fact that he was diabetic. He could not speak as he had collapsed into a diabetic coma. He claimed that it helped to save his life.
Many other stories... As a retired RN I am passionate about this subject. Please check it out! Costs less than the bracelets and can be updated anytime with 270 fields of life saving information.
www.EIS.biz/teamEIS
We know many people who are diabetic and I thank you for writing this hub. Hopefully it will raise awareness and cause people to be less judgemental and rather think of helping people before it is too late.
Thank you for this very insightful article. I have had bouts with low blood sugar levels, and my sister use to have allergy related seizures. It can be very scary, not knowing what is going wrong. I can't imagine being one of those who was left to die.
Great hub. As a medic, I've seen this scenario before. You're absolutely right that the public (and law enforcement) need to be more educated on these things.
Luckily, it's become standard protocol in most (if not all) places in the US for paramedics to check a person's blood sugar as a part of normal treatment. It's become as common as taking a blood pressure. Good for you for raising awareness!
Thank you very much for writing, EM, PW, CD, and AG. I greatly appreciate your comments. I'm especially glad to know, Amy, that paramedics now regularly check blood sugar. It's that kind of easy answer that can make a huge difference in many of the problems we face. Too often we attempt to reinvent the wheel when all a solution requires is common sense - use what is already there as the basis for change, disturb the fewest people for the greatest efficiency, employ the carrot not the stick, etc.
You are so right, too often people mistake low sugar for a person being drunk. It is important to always wear a medic alert bracelet, even though in your example, the police ignored it!
Yes, it's pretty bad when you've done all you can to alert people to medical issues and they ignore them. More training and public service announcements would help greatly. (See what Amy G says above on training for paramedics.)
And let me say again - it doesn't matter what it is that is making a person vulnerable, including drinking too much. If someone is unable to help themselves for any reason, we must help them or ensure that they get help.
I'm not expecting anyone to put themselves in danger. Just call for help. It's the very least we can do - a duty we owe to any fellow human being.
Thanks for writing, cindyvine!
This is an excellent hub. Another common condition that mimics drunkeness is hyperthermia (heat exhaustion and heat stroke). In fact it is very nearly the same thing infact because the primary cause of drunkeness is dehydration caused by the alcohol (medically, of course the primary cause is the aclohol). Since heat problems are usually associated with dehydration the two are very similar.
As many people have stated, as well, drunk folks need help too. Alcohol poisoning is potentially lethal and can happen whether you drink all the time or not. Most often it is seen in binge drinkers, who abstain for long periods of time then bince, and in new drinker, but that doesn't mean they're the only ones. Additionally any altered level of consciousness is considered to be life threatening, and drunkeness is an altered LOC.
B.Z. - I'm glad to have your extra information about heat exhaustion and heat stroke. And glad you reiterated what I said in several comments as well as in the body of the article - that anyone who is in no state to help himself/herself, WHATEVER THE CAUSE, needs our care and attention. The least we *must* do is alert the police or EMTs and wait until they arrive. Thanks very much for adding to our knowledge on a very important subject.
What a brilliant Hub! Pat comes from a family with a diabetic inclination, so is particularly keen that the occasional side effects of diabetes are recognised.
We both feel that there is too much public inclination to cross to the other side of the road to avoid trouble these days. Maybe too many people have forgotten the meaning of the phrase 'no man is an island'.
2patricias - You are so right. This idea that it is now acceptable to ignore a hurt child (or dog or cat, for that matter), turn away from a sick or injured person lying helpless in the street, or otherwise ignore our fellow man in stressful circumstances - well, like you, I find it both heartbreaking and repellent.
Interestingly, I've used Donne's quotation twice recently. It is one of the most compelling pieces of wisdom to be found.
I'm glad I read this hub. I passed out in the supermarket and could have been thought intoxicated. My friend called 911 and I was rushed to hospital with severe dehydration. Thanks for a very useful hub.
Another excellent hub my dear! My 'ex' is epileptic and I find it hard when people ignore someone who is incapacitated for whatever reason.
Thank you, Gypsy and Enelle. Any one of us could be in that position at any time and I certainly hope there are kindly, thoughtful people around if, God forbid, we ever are. Having nearly collapsed on the street with my heart attack, I know how close I came to putting my life in the hands of complete strangers. (And, strangely, I wrote this hub before that happened!)
Thank you for bringing this information to people. My son has Type 1 and I worry about something like this happening to him when he is grown up.
Thank you for your comments, just write, and for the compelling story of your son's experience. I hope you'll write more about your efforts to get the word out to other parents of elementary school children.
JamaGenee says:
8 months ago
Thank you for alerting people to the non-alcohol-related conditions that make one appear to be drunk! Back when I was in politics, a man hired as a consultant for election season hadn't told anyone he was diabetic. Shortly before lunch one day, he became argumentative and was slurring his words. Alas, I assumed he'd been sneaking drinks in his office and went off to lunch without him. Luckily, another staff member recognized what was happening, put sugar on his tongue and he was fine, but I shudder to think what might've happened had he been walking along the street outside our building!