A student has shared a horrifying photo of herself in hospital in an effort to warn others about the dangers of binge drinking.
Hanna Lottritz, a 21-year-old journalism student at the University of Nevada, drank five times the legal limit for driving at a concert with friends and then collapsed into a coma, the Independent report.
The aspiring journalist’s now written a blog about what happened to her that night.
She writes on her blog:
I didn’t realise the importance of drinking responsibly until I was waking up from a coma… Many of the people I was with had been drinking throughout the day and were already feeling good.
My problems started after the concert. I ended up at a campsite where I found some of my other friends. This group [of friends] was mostly guys who (for some reason) I promised I could out-drink.
Ms Lottriz then began to compete with a friend to see how long they could drink whiskey from a bottle without stopping.
After drinking the bottle she told her friends she was fine, but blacked out and stopped breathing.
The next thing she remembers is waking up from a coma. She had a tube down her throat to enable her to breath and her hands were restrained, to stop her from removing the tube.
Doctors told her they thought she was brain dead as she was completely unresponsive, and didn’t react to verbal or painful stimuli.
She suffered acute respiratory failure and acute alcohol intoxication, with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.41 – a reading five times the legal limit allowed for driving.
The breathing pipe was removed from her throat several hours after waking.
Doctors then asked if she had tried to kill herself by binge drinking, a question she claims made her realise ‘the seriousness of being irresponsible with alcohol’.
Ms Lottritz said the event had changed her approach to alcohol forever, and that instead of going out and drinking shots on her birthday she’ll be celebrating with dinner and ‘maybe a glass of wine.’
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.