Our son passed out at his job today, from drinking. He blacked out, bruised the side of his face, and scared the life out of his co-worker when she came in to investigate the noise and found him flat on the floor.
Ari is legal age now and he has a beer with us sometimes, but he’s always been an overall great kid. We never would have ever suspected that he had a drinking problem, let alone that there’d be an incident at his work!
Especially since it wasn’t even alcohol, but Dr. Pepper.
The details were a little hard to catch because he and his dad were laughing too hard when he told the story, and all I could think was MY BABY+UNCONSCIOUS and my maternal brain started to melt down.
Near as I could gather, Ari was on his lunch break and he went to take a big swig of his Dr. Pepper. It was fizzing heavily and the ice in the fountain cup shifted at the same time as the whole thing half-spilled, while he simultaneously took a deep breath, causing him to accidentally get a huge, honking, lung-full of the carbonated bubbles. He said he felt a really sharp pain in his chest (which nearly gave ME a heart attack to hear), and then the room went black.
Carbonated=carbon dioxide=no oxygen to the brain=thwaaack! on the floor
Have you ever heard of such a thing? He thinks it’s all pretty hilarious, as did his coworkers and the rest of our family once it was determined that he was okay. There’s been a plethora of riffs and puns about drinking and passing out, and at least there was a “doctor” nearby, hyuck, hyuck….
Oy.
Meanwhile, his little brother was at a dollar store in the same strip mall where Ari works. When Cob started to head home he walked past a fire truck and heavy rescue unit pulling up to the fabric store, which was missing the entire front of the building. Some little old lady mistook it for a drive-thru business.
Just a few weeks ago, the same thing happened to the deli in the same mall, just across the parking lot. And less than a block away from that, somebody took a corner too wide and drove up onto a person’s lawn, miraculously squeezing between two trees that were only eight feet apart before crashing into their living room.
Two days ago, a deer jumped and crashed through the front window of a grocery store at another nearby strip mall.
Oh. Okay, I get it now!
I’m living in the freaking Bermuda Triangle.
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September 7, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Light & Dark
Not sure I’m buying the snorting carbonation explanation. He’ would’ve had to be huffing nothing but bubbles for a couple of minutes to cause him to black out.
CO2 wouldn’t have displaced oxygen in his bloodstream, just meant there wasn’t as much oxygen available in his indrawn breath. But given that we only need and use a tiny percentage of the oxygen in each breath anyway, there’s essentially no way he could have passed out from having some CO2 in one breath.
As an example, forcefully breathe out, leaving your lungs with much less oxygen than a CO2-laden inhalation would cause. Now don’t breathe in. You’ll be uncomfortable from the desire to breathe, but you certainly won’t pass out even if you wait 30 or 45 seconds to provide oxygen to your lungs again.
Sorry to get all pedantic here. I would be very curious to figure out what did actually cause the blackout. Either way, glad he’s OK!
As for the wild driving stunts, you should work in a tourist town like Banff to get the full effect.
Paul
September 8, 2007 at 6:24 am
Attila the Mom
Holy smokes! I would have been scared too! Glad he’s ok.