<p>Ten years ago, this senseless and sad story shook my circle of friends and family. </p>
<p>Since you cannot count on much on schools and fraternities to have changed much, make sure to have a talk with your rising freshman. The dangers are still looming large. </p>
<p>Such a GREAT GREAT kid with a beautiful family. Just a huge tragedy and something that should never have happened.</p>
<p>The film which was made after this horrible incident is still played at my Ds’ private school, and at many other area schools as well. At the very least it has made these kids more cognizant of the symptoms of alcohol poisoning and the need to get people help rather than believing the proper thing to do is to let them sleep it off. </p>
<p>I’ve never understood hazing, and in particular hazing in which young people are coerced to drink large amounts of alcohol. Just what is this supposed to accomplish? I really don’t get it.</p>
<p>I hope to never drink in college (which I recognize is rather naive), and hopefully I won’t run into stuff like this.</p>
<p>I can’t believe it has been 10 years since that happened. So very sad. </p>
<p>Drinking and partying are parts of the college experience. Hazing and peer coercion are different animals. </p>
<p>It would be naive to think that eradicating drinking and partying is possible, or even warranted. The laws hardly reflect what happens in this century. On the other hand, hazing and nefarious practices by certain groups could and should be eliminated if there were more courageous and determined leaders in our schools. </p>
<p>Ah, but I’m sure these frats all participate in fundraisers for worthy charities, so it’s all good.</p>
<p>"New pledges were brought to a bonfire in the Arapaho National Forest, blindfolded and served four bottles of Ten High bourbon whiskey and six bottles of Carlo Rossi wine before they could return to the fraternity. "</p>
<p>" At her son’s funeral, recalls Leslie Lanahan, “two or three parents gave me hugs and said, ‘This could have happened to any of our kids.’” </p>
<p>This kind of premeditated social coercion to drink dangerous amounts of alcohol doesn’t happen by accident. Most of the reports I’ve heard have happened in fraternities.</p>
<p>Xiggi, my condolences to you and yours.</p>
<p>That’s something you never forget.</p>
<p>I remember sharing your posts with my son. Yes, cannot forget. </p>
<p>xiggi, also remembering the CC poster (freshman at Cornell) who died of alcohol poisoning after attending a frat party at UVA during his spring break in '06. Sad. He had written about drinking on CC. (Don’t want to mention his name, but a lot of CC “oldtimers” might remember. . .)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.creighton.edu/fileadmin/user/StudentServices/StudentSuccess/MATTHEW_PEARLSTONE.doc”>http://www.creighton.edu/fileadmin/user/StudentServices/StudentSuccess/MATTHEW_PEARLSTONE.doc</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://cornellsun.com/blog/2006/03/26/freshman-dies-of-alcohol-poisoning/”>http://cornellsun.com/blog/2006/03/26/freshman-dies-of-alcohol-poisoning/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.readthehook.com/77706/cornell-student-found-dead-uva”>http://www.readthehook.com/77706/cornell-student-found-dead-uva</a></p>
<p>ALCOHOL POISONING KILLS.
Think it can’t happen to you?</p>
<p>Matthew Pearlstone, 19, was found dead in a University of Virginia dorm on Friday, March 18, 2006. While police sergeant Melissa Fielding said “we don’t know the cause of death,” his grandfather acknowledges that his grandson was partying it up on Saint Patrick’s day.</p>
<p>“He went to sleep and never woke up,” Howard Pearlstone said. “The whole thing is beyond my comprehension.” While an autopsy will be performed, the cause of death appears to be illegal underage drinking. On facebook, he writes about his spring break plans: “Visiting UVA/Drinking in St. Louis: It’s St. Patrick’s Day at UVA, what do you think I’m gonna be doing?”</p>
<p>Matt’s self-chosen facebook picture–in front of a trunk full of Bud Light–spells it out:
Although we didn’t know him personally, friends confirm that Matt Pearlstone was never far from a drink. Clearly, the cause of his death is illegal underage drinking at a UVA fraternity. </p>
<p>One Katherine Collins, an alumnus of Auburn, presciently noted on facebook on January 12th, “Happy bday pstone…hope college is going well and you are drinking yourself to death.” Michael Gabel, a Dartmouth undergrad, also wrote on Matthew Pearlstone’s birthday, “why do i have a sneaking suspicion that this is the last night that pearlstone will be alive…” How sad that such a promising young student of Computer Science should meet his end, not drinking it up on his birthday, but on green Saint Patty’s day.</p>
<p>The coroner confirms that his death was due to alcohol poisoning, as we already knew. The LD50 for Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) is accepted between a .35 and a .40. As a heavy drinker, Matt Pearlstone probably had even more in his system. However, the coroner refused to release his BAC, so we’ll never know.
<a href=“http://cornell.elliottback.com/archives/2006/03/26/matthew-pearlstone-speaks/”>http://cornell.elliottback.com/archives/2006/03/26/matthew-pearlstone-speaks/</a></p>
<p>MATT THOUGHT HE KNEW. IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN TO HIM.
In Matt’s own words…</p>
<p>I enjoy drinking, but I certainly don’t go through life in a haze. I’m on track to either double or triple major plus get an MEng in 8 semesters, I run marathons for fun, and generally live life to its fullest. I do not drink myself into a stupor and waste days, months and years. Drinking is a recreational activity that I very much enjoy, but I keep it in its place - drinking only with friends and only when it won’t interfere with my other goals (I’m not Bode Miller, I don’t drink before marathons or prelims). Alcohol hasn’t limited me in any way, nor has it ever prevented me from achieving success. I’m sorry that alcohol has caused you such problems, binx, but I’m not telling you to drink. I’m just counteracting the anti-alcohol posts that everyone else seems to have and saying that it is possible for alcohol to be a positive, enjoyable thing. That, and also showing that liability wise that drunk driving (or other dangerous activity after drinking, like drunk jetskiing) is by far the biggest problem because it is far easier and far more likely that someone will drink and drive and kill themselves/someone else than it is they will drink enough to stop breathing.</p>
<p>I am ignorant? I can tell you, both statistically and anecdotally, that it is very rare and comparitively hard for someone to drink themselves to death. Me and my friends are all very experienced drinkers, and we all know exactly how we get when we drink too much, so we go by those signs. For those we don’t know as well, we ensure that they throw up (so they don’t absorb any more alcohol from their stomach) and are responsive and reasonably coherent to make sure they won’t die. Given the huge number of teens who drink, and the amount that many teens drink combined with the risky drinking patterns inherent in teen drinking (chugging, taking lots of shots before you can even fully feel the first one, the list goes on and on), and the relatively small number of pure alcohol (i.e. stopped breathing) deaths compared to both the number of drinkers and the number of people who die from drinking and driving, it is clear that drinking is usually only problematic when combined with driving. Honestly, that’s why I like drinking with experienced drinkers - it is MUCH harder for someone with a tolerence to drink themselves dead than it is for a drinking novice who has no idea of how to drink and also has no tolerence.</p>
<p>Don’t try to intimidate me with medical facts; I know most any alcohol related fact backwards and forwards. I don’t take blind risks, and I’m fully aware of the risks I take with drinking. In my mind, the benefits of drinking - the fun, the camaraderie, the burn of that first shot - vastly outweigh the costs (I’ve paid my dues for drinking in a number of ways). I learned as much from drinking/partying during high school as I did from classes (and I took 14 APs), not to mention that while a lot of the things I learned in HS I’ll never really use again (i.e. chemistry), I’ll always use the skills I learned from drinking/partying (how to read a situation, a lot about people in general, etc.). You’re every bit as ignorant as you accuse me of being</p>
<p>A friend wrote…
Date: March 22nd, 2006 3:23 PM
Author: anon1309
The funeral is tomorrow in Missouri. I’m upset because it’s such a loss, but knowing Matt, I can’t say it surprised me all that much. I’m expecting it to hit me a lot harder when I get back to school. I drank with him many times. He could outdrink nearly anyone and would not drink all the time, but he wouldn’t restrict it to weekends. I had never personally seen him passout drunk, but his roommates have. We never considered his drinking to be a problem because he was always on top of his schoolwork, and knew every drinking fact, statistic, danger, etc., so we assumed it was under control.</p>
<p>D starts freshman year in a few weeks at a small LAC in Rhode Island. At new student orientation the school showed the video to the incoming class and then to the parents. So sad.</p>
<p><a href=“http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2006/04/in-postings-a-tragic-portrait-of-defiance/”>http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2006/04/in-postings-a-tragic-portrait-of-defiance/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profile/comments/34563/lucifer11287”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profile/comments/34563/lucifer11287</a></p>
<p>Xiggi, thanks for posting. Let us not forget these young people. ( Also George Desdunes of Cornell, who also died of a fraternity related alcohol poisoning event in 2010.) So sorry for your loss.</p>
<p>To the parents out there, what is really hard to understand is how the so called friends and “brothers” would rather leave someone to die on the floor or a couch than call 911 because they are afraid that they or their fraternity will suffer a punishment for the episode. It is important to be responsible for one’s own consumption, but it is also the right thing to do to help someone who needs medical assistance.</p>
<p>xiggi, thank you for posting. This thread is tearing my heart out, but the Boy Who Lights My Life is going to be a high school junior this year, so we need to get busy educating on this topic. </p>
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<p>Considering that getting drunk to the point of passing out is “normal” for those into binge drinking, they may not pay attention to whether a passed out person is in real danger of dying (if they even notice much of anything in their drunken stupor). Obviously, this is another risk of getting drunk, particularly with other drunk people (in addition to the risks discussed in other threads about sex, fights, etc.).</p>
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<p>Zoosermon, if there is one silver lining in all those untimely deaths, is that some lives might be saved in the future. I think that all of us have been hit by senseless tragedies and always hoped that the story might serve a purpose. In that regard, I think that the reaction of the parents of Gordie Bailey has been remarkable. They did put their pain and sorrow on the backburner (publicly that is) and focused on helping others in the future. They did choose to focus on the education rather than demonizing the organizations that were responsible. They did show what true compassion means – and I wish at times I was a better man and one that would not indict all fraternities! </p>
<p>The Lanahan and Bailey families lost a wonderful son. I lost a childhood friend with whom I shared some of my best slices of life. But there is no possible comparison in our losses. I often think about what could have been. His family has done that every day and every hour. And they have never ceased to look at the generations to come. </p>
<p>Let’s hope that many hear the message before it is too late. Hollow as those words might sound, they remain very necessary. Just in case … here is a link to the family’s work: <a href=“http://gordiescall.org/”>http://gordiescall.org/</a></p>
<p>I hope the Boy who lights your life will continue to bring you happiness and pride! </p>
<p>
Thank you, and thank you for looking out for other people’s children!</p>
<p>You know, the timing of this thread has ended up being pretty important to me.</p>
<p>My son may be forced to disaffiliate, sadly, but reading this makes me feel that perhaps it’s not so terrible.</p>
<p>I am so sorry for the loss of your dear friend. I can’t even imagine how awful losing him was.</p>