UW residence students hospitalized for alcohol intoxication

Four students from UW’s residences were sent to hospital last weekend due to alcohol intoxication — the highest number since orientation week. All the hospitalized students were first years.

“The residences vary, such that there is no information to suggest this is more likely to occur in one area or a specific residence,” Staff Sgt. Dale Roe of UW’s Campus Police said.

Roe attributed the high number of first-year hospitalized students to inexperience around alcohol.

“These folks are away from home for more than a weekend, and they don’t know their limits.” Roe added that a social environment and peer pressure are also factors to blame.

The amount of student hospitalizations varies week to week. Three students were taken to hospital on the weekend of Sept. 22, and four during frosh week. Yet, those numbers do not encompass the amount of drunk students encountered by campus police.

“There were a couple more that were left in the care of a responsible person,” said Roe.

As part of police law guidelines when police officers, on campus or otherwise, encounter a drunken person, they need to decide whether that individual will be safe if let go or whether they need to be taken into police custody.

“It’s all about the safety of the individual. If they have someone to help, police will turn them over to the care of that person,” said Roe.

Roe added that if that person is alone, unresponsive, incoherent and/or confused, they may be taken to a jail cell to dry out. Officers also have the right to charge persons in a drunken state with public intoxication.

Roe stated that last weekend’s drunken incidences occurred in various settings.

“The majority were in public areas, some not near a student residence, a couple were in their residence rooms and were found by friends or roommates who called out of concern for the person’s well-being,” said Roe.