Girl drinks liquid nitrogen, has stomach removed

EternityMech

An 18-year-old teenager has had to have her stomach removed in an emergency operation after drinking a cocktail containing liquid nitrogen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19878511

Question? How does she eat food without a stomach? Carry a bag?

Monique

It is irresponsible that people are putting dangerous compounds into food, I can't believe that its being tolerated by authorities. Seriously, who in the right state of mind would serve someone a drink with liquid nitrogen in it?

Without details on her medical situation it's difficult to know what diet she'd be able to tolerate, but it could be similar to people who have undergone gastric bypass surgery. Small portion, preferably liquid food.

Mentallic

She was dared into it, and while she clearly didn't know the possible consequences of drinking it, she knew what she was drinking.

Monique

Liquid nitrogen is a dangerous compound, in the lab there are clear safety regulations such as wearing goggles and special gloves. How is it that a bar can serve a drink containing liquid nitrogen?

The same goes for dry ice, frozen CO2, which is popping up in restaurant dishes.

jackmell

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...4063129AARn7k8

Evo

Absolutely agree. It's the new molecular gastronomy fad of using liquid nitrogen that probably gave some idiot the idea. But why put it in a drink? That has to be criminally negligent at best.

When my brother was in school, he had a part time job as a bartender and he told me that for halloween, they would occasionally pretend to hand a customer sitting at the bar a drink that had a small chunk of dry ice in it, so that it would be bubbling and smoking, but that they would not actually let the customer have it, they would toss it and give them a fresh drink.

I don't really blame the teen, you assume that a restaurant or pub would not intentionally serve someone something harmful and/or potentially fatal on purpose.

axemaster

This discussion is a bit over the top. It's perfectly safe to put LN2 in a drink - as long as you don't add too much. LN2 tends to form a vapor layer preventing it from damaging something hot like flesh, until the flesh cools down enough to slow the boiling.

I suspect the drink had a extremely large amount of LN2 in it. Otherwise I can't imagine how any LN2 would even reach the stomach, much less be able to damage it.

So blame the barkeeper for being an idiot, and the girl for not being prudent enough to glance at the glass before she started chugging it. But don't go condemning the practice as a whole.

Greg Bernhardt

I suppose this is along the same lines as a bartender giving a costumer a glass full of 151 or everclear. Legal, but very dangerous.

Evo

It's stupid to do it. Liquid nitrogen used by someone trained in using it in a kitchen to flash freeze food is one thing. Using it for entertainment for immediate consumption is dangerous and should not be allowed.

Greg Bernhardt

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oc...itrogen-drinks

Ryan_m_b

The idea of such cocktails is that they have enough in them to maintain the frothing vapour effect for a while. You're not meant to drink it until it's completely stopped but in a negligent bar such as this one customers have the drink for long enough to drink it before it's all gone.

This is a real tragedy and there isn't an excuse for it. In a setting where people are being served countless, very strong alcoholic drinks it shouldn't be allowed to mix in something very harmful and potentially fatal, regardless of how cool it looks. At the very least the bartender should stay with the customers and their drink and not let them drink it until it is safe to do so.

I'm glad to see a ban has been called for.

atyy

LN2 or dry ice? I think the standard practice in labs is to handle LN2 only with goggles. Although I've never tried, I've assumed that this is because accidental splashes onto one's eyes can harm one's vision.

Hmm, but perhaps you are right. "Applied to the eyes of rabbits for two seconds, liquid nitrogen caused no adverse effect. When the duration of exposure was lengthened to 5 seconds, the corneal epithelium showed slight staining when tested with fluorescein, but this effect had cleared by the next day [Grant 1986]." http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguide...cognition.html (But I'm still keeping my goggles on:)

I wonder whether it's been established that the perforation was caused by LN2?

WannabeNewton

How is the idiotic girl who drank it knowingly not getting any blame here? I hardly find that fair.

Evo

It would appear that the bartender may be at fault for giving the drink to the teenager before it was safe to drink.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/liquid-...ry?id=17425885

Hurkyl

Eh? I hadn't seen anything suggesting she was aware that she was served anything more dangerous than alcohol.

Mentallic

Actually, I read a news story on ninemsn about the same incident so I didn't bother to read the story in the link, assuming it was the same. This is why I previously said

Based on the news article I had read.

D H

Yep. This practice was a lawsuit waiting to happen.


This is particularly so when the customers are being served with something that, well, makes them dumb. With regard to how a reasonable person can be expected to behave in a bar, the reasonable person standard degrades to the reasonably intoxicated person standard.