Coroner ‘amazed’ more don’t die from binge drinking

THE recently-retired Dublin coroner has expressed concern about binge drinking among young people and said it is surprising that greater numbers do not die from the effects of alcohol, considering what they drink.

Dr Kieran Geraghty, who described binge drinking as “very dangerous” said young people are “oblivious to the real dangers” of alcohol.

“Alcohol is probably the biggest killer,” he said. “One of the things that shocks me nowadays as a doctor is (that) I have young people coming in to me and they seem to want to binge drink,” added Dr Geraghty, who has just retired as Dublin County coroner after 12 years. “I can remember going... I was about 19, to a dance and drank a whiskey for the first time and I got as sick as a dog. I have never liked whiskey to this day. I learned my lesson. But they go out and get sick every weekend.

“They don’t just go out to have a pleasant few drinks. They are drinking shots and they are competing to see how much they can drink. It’s so dangerous. It’s amazing more of them don’t die from it,” he said.

“As I doctor, I explain to them if you drink a lot of alcohol, it’s like an anaesthetic and if you’re lying back and vomit, you are going to inhale your vomit and you are not going to wake up. Or else if you drink enough alcohol you just won’t wake up from it.

“But they are oblivious to the real dangers of it,” he said.

He warned that women are much more vulnerable than men because they are not able to metabolise alcohol.