Alcohol emergencies everywhere

Purim Intox

By Michael Orbach

It was an 18-year-old. He was unconscious, the caller said; he drank too much at a shul party and was breathing very slowly. The paramedic, the first on the scene, concentrated on keeping the patient’s airway open, provided oxygen and started an IV to administer fluids. Other Hatzalah members arrived with an ambulance, and prepared to transport their patient to a hospital. Midway through the ride, the boy regained consciousness and started fighting with the ambulance crew, even managing to bite one man. The team was forced to tie him down until they arrived at the hospital.

That was the first call; dozens more, many just like that one, kept the paramedic and his fellow volunteers out until nearly sunrise. One case was almost fatal, but the patient was resuscitated successfully.

“Anyone in EMS (emergency medical services) will tell you that Purim is just a night of excessive inebriation and a huge Chilul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s name),” said the paramedic, who declined to be identified in keeping with Hatzalah policy against speaking with the media. “You know it’s going to be a long one. You expect no sleep and not much time with your family. You wind up dealing with the Purim casualties.”

Several other calls brought him back to the same hospital, where a nurse pulled him aside to talk about the holiday.

“She told me, ‘I’ve got five [alcohol-related] cases in pediatrics. One of them is 9 years old,’” he said.

Despite a steady stream of commentary against heavy drinking — particularly underage drinking - that led up to Purim (Rav Shmuel Kamenetzky called heavy drinking an aveirah, a sin), the drinking on Purim continued.

“It’s more disturbing when it happens in yeshiva and in rabbonim’s houses, [rabbonim] who should know better,” the paramedic said. “Rabbis who are mentors to these children sanction this kind of behavior. It’s troubling. I don’t know if the adults in the picture fully comprehend the ramifications of what they’re promoting. They’re putting kids’ lives in danger.”

Rabbi Elozer Kanner, one of the coordinators of Hatzalah of the Five Towns and the Rockaways, detected some improvement — fewer calls involving intoxication, that is — over past years.

“At least what I saw ... was much better than previous,” Kanner said. “I’d like to dream that people are hearing the message. I don’t know.”

Cheryl Noll, a junior at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, spent most of her Purim evening in a hospital at the side of a friend who had too much too drink.

“I understand that for a lot of these YU students, Purim is also their only real exposure to drinking, but since they are older, there is a general expectation that they will behave more responsibly,” she said.

Dov Friedman, a commercial director who lives in Washington Heights, said he spent Purim evening drunk, but not too drunk.

“Now that I’m older it’s easy for me to say that kids under 21 shouldn’t be drinking at all; it’s the law. But, when I was in high school, I could care less if someone told me not to drink, and I did it anyway, and got really drunk every year. It’s a tough situation because ‘everybody is doing it.’”

In Far Rockaway, David Klinkowitz said that while he remained sober, he understood why many others chose to get drunk.

“They think they are supposed to,” he explained. “They think they are expected to...”

The paramedic made it to the eight o’clock minyan the next morning to hear the megillah reading. Hours later during his Purim seuda, the calls began again. “It never ends,” he lamented.