Actually... well here's an article about a kid who was hooked up to an alcohol IV. I ganked it from the media forum. They posted a link, but I didn't feel like clicking it to get the source of this. Just search for the article in the media forum if you want to know.
Check out this kids blood alcohol level. To tell you the truth, I was actually born with a .61 so I'm actually more hardcore than this kid. I mean, I'm not saying this kid isn't hardcore or anything. I'm just saying that since I was born with a higher level, I'm more hardcore than him.
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A 7-year-old Louisville boy was in stable condition last night at Kosair Children's Hospital, according to his mother, after being admitted Saturday with a blood-alcohol level of 0.59 percent -- more than seven times the level at which a person is considered drunk under Kentucky law.
Police say the boy's stepfather, Chris Harmon, had fed him vodka through a medical feeding tube in the child's abdomen. Charged with first-degree criminal abuse, Harmon, of the 900 block of Ash Street, was being held yesterday in the Jefferson County Jail.
''It's shocking,'' said Louisville Police Sgt. Jeffery Moseley of the Crimes Against Children Unit. ''I don't think anybody (in this unit) has ever seen a bloodalcohol level in a child that was that high.''
Yesterday afternoon, police said, the boy's blood-alcohol content remained at 0.20 -- still more than double the 0.08 level at which someone is considered drunk.
Officials at Kosair Children's Hospital would not release the boy's condition, saying officials from the state's Child Protective Services agency were involved.
Mike Jennings, a spokesman for the state agency, said late yesterday that he had no information on the case.
The boy's mother, Cherie Glover, said yesterday that her son was conscious -- but seemed different.
''He would laugh a little and then just cry and cry,'' she said in an interview yesterday afternoon outside the Jefferson County Hall of Justice, where she'd gone to seek an Emergency Protective Order against Harmon. She alleged that her husband had abused her sporadically in the two years they'd been married.
Jefferson County Coroner Richard Greathouse, who is a pediatrician, said that at 0.59, the blood-alcohol level of Glover's son would have been almost double the amount considered fatal, especially for a child. He said he's seen children die with levels of 0.3 or 0.4, but never in his 28 years as coroner has he seen a case in which a child had such a high blood-alcohol level.
''That's just a whopping amount,'' Greathouse said. ''It's totally, totally outrageous.''
Many people lose consciousness when their blood-alcohol level reaches 0.3. For inexperienced adult drinkers, a blood-alcohol level of 0.35 or 0.4 can be lethal, Greathouse said. Adults who abuse alcohol develop a tolerance, but even for them, 0.5 would usually be a lethal dose, he said.
With a 0.59 blood-alcohol level, the child would likely have suffered damage to his kidneys, heart and central nervous system, Greathouse said. ''He would have very, very severe brain damage from the effects of that amount of alcohol,'' he said. ''The damage on a 7-year-old child would be double or triple that in an adult.''
Alcohol affects people differently, depending on age, sex, weight, health, duration of drinking, and the amount of food and any drugs consumed at the same time. So it's not possible from the blood-alcohol level alone to know how much alcohol the boy ingested.
But according to standard formulas used by police and government agencies, a typical man weighing 150 pounds would have to drink 25 shots containing 1 ounce of 96-proof liquor, or 20 beers, in one hour to have a blood-alcohol level as high as the boy's 0.59.
Glover said yesterday that she and her husband both had been drinking at their Germantown home on Saturday; he'd started drinking at 10:30 a.m., she said.
Around 6 p.m., she said, she went to her son's room after her husband yelled to her from there, saying something was wrong.
''I saw him and his eyes were dancing,'' she said of her son. ''And his pupils were fully dilated.''
She said her husband told her that the boy wasn't breathing, and she called 911 and frantically began doing chest compressions. Emergency Medical Services arrived and took the boy to the hospital, where medical personnel were able to bring him to consciousness, she said.
Police arrested Harmon at Kosair later the same evening, Moseley said, adding that investigators found ''indications of alcohol abuse'' at the house.
Glover said her son was born with a rare condition known as Vacteral syndrome, a cluster of birth defects that can affect the vertebrae, anal area, limbs, esophagus, and heart and liver function.
She said the boy, who has a tracheal tube and is fed through a gastrointestinal bag, couldn't sleep without special medication. But she said they'd stopped buying the medication recently, after Passport, the statesponsored health care program she used, stopped paying for it.
Without the medication, she said, her son would scream and cry through the night.
Glover said her husband worked construction jobs occasionally but had only worked two days this month. He had been caring for the boy full time while she worked a late shift at Ryan's restaurant on Preston Highway, she said, adding that she recently quit her job out of concern that Harmon would harm her son and her two other children, ages 10 and 4, from another relationship.
Neighbors said they never noticed any problems. Patrick Stokell, who lives two doors down from the couple, said they often talked of how much they loved children and wanted to adopt.
''All I know is that they're really crazy about children,'' he said. ''I find it hard to believe this could happen.''
