Acute ethanol poisonings during the New Year's Eve party "95/'96 in Kraków

Distilled spirits are the major source of ethanol consumption in Poland. Such concentrated alcohol is drunk quickly, especially in teenager groups who consider consumption of 250 or 500 ml of vodka during one hour or one hour and half as quite normal. For two years the New Years Eve party has been celebrated in the Main Market Square in Kraków. In 1995 unfavourable weather conditions had been observed for at least 14 days before the New Year's Eve night. During that night only 15 people-participants of the party were admitted to the Department of Toxicology. The aim of this study is to present the cases of poisoned people with ethanol during the last night of the year 1995. All the patients were young (10 poisoned patients were below 17 years of age), considerably low body temperature, and relatively low coma grade. 80% of the patients were admitted between 0:00 and 5:00 a.m. after 200 minutes since the moment they started to drink alcohol. Blood ethanol concentration ranged from 1.2 to 4.23 g/L and serum osmolality from 338 to 440 mOsm/kg H2O. Both ethanol concentration and serum osmolality progressively rose reaching the highest values in the group of patient with III coma degree (p < 0.001). All the cases of acute ethanol poisoning presented in the study had a good outcome, as patient were admitted at the Clinic in relatively short time after symptoms of poisoning have occurred.