Chinese boy, 13, treated for alcohol poisoning after father forces him to drink baijiu
- Father wanted to increase his son’s tolerance to alcohol
- The boy’s face was red and he could not be awakened by shouting
A thirteen-year-old Chinese boy had to be rushed to hospital to be treated for alcohol poisoning after his father forced him to drink liquor to increase his alcohol tolerance, a mainland newspaper said.
The unidentified boy in Wuhan, in central China’s Hubei province, lost consciousness on Tuesday evening, soon after his father force-fed him 100ml (3.4 ounces) of baijiu, Wuhan Evening News reported on Thursday.
He was then taken to hospital by his parents. Liu Lin, the assistant chief doctor on duty at the time, told the paper that she could strongly smell alcohol when the family arrived at the unidentified hospital.
The boy regained consciousness around 2am on Wednesday after receiving emergency treatment.
Severe alcohol poisoning was suspected since the boy’s face was red and he could not be awakened by shouting, Liu said.
The incident happened at a family Lunar New Year banquet, where the father made the boy drink a large glass of baijiu to improve his alcohol tolerance, the boy’s mother was quoted as saying.
“At the beginning everyone thought it was not a problem,” she was quoted. “It was only at the end of the banquet that we realised the child would not wake up despite [our] shouting at him. His body was warm all over.”
The father surnamed Wang vowed that “in the future I will never play this kind of joke on my child’s body again”, according to the newspaper.
Liu said many parents err by thinking that giving a child a sip of alcohol will not hurt them. In fact, the practice “is very risky”. Children can suffer greater damage from alcohol than adults because their livers are less well-developed to break down alcohol properly, the doctor said.
Even low alcohol drinks can cause alcohol poisoning in children, Liu said.
Children also are more susceptible than adults to potentially life-threatening ailments such as brain damage and epilepsy when they consume alcohol because their nervous systems are more sensitive to alcohol toxicity.
China’s Consensus on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute Alcoholism states that adults can die from consuming 250 to 500ml (8.4 to 16.9 ounces) of alcohol, while children are at risk from only 25ml (0.8 ounces). Infants can die from consuming only 6 to 10ml (0.2 to 0.3 ounces) of alcohol.
Chinese law permits children to consume alcohol on private premises. But minors under 18 years old are prohibited from drinking in public.
