Is a 2.3 BAC Possible? - Jacob's Inquiry

[wasteofo2]

I was hanging out with some friends tonight, and they started talking about people who had gone to the hospital because of drinking. Unless my health teacher lied to me horribly, .3 is generally where adults start dying. A friend of mine once had .3 at age 14, and had to go to the hospital and get his stomach pumped - that was really really really bad.

But a kid there claimed that at least 2 other kids had gotten 2.3's. According to the former kid, one of the latter kids had drunk a poland spring bottle full of vodka, and thus got a 2.3 BAC, and had to have his stomach pumped several times. I'm PRETTY sure that these guys just have the decimal in the wrong place, and these teenage kids had a .23 BAC, and needed their stomach pumped, as having 2 percent of your blood being alcohol simply sounds like it couldn't happen with you surviving.

Anyone learned in the science of crunkology that can clarify this pressing issue?

Thanks,
Jacob

 

[Pengwuino]

Hell i thought anything above 1.0 meant over 100% lol, so i don't know :)

 

[wasteofo2]

I thought BAC was literally percentage of alcohol in the blood, so a .3 BAC meant that you had 3 parts per thousand of alcohol in your blood.

 

[Huckleberry]

I think your estimate is right. Those kids had the decimal in the wrong place, or perhaps they were just lying. If they had 2.3% blood/alcohol level then their blood would be more alcoholic than some cheap American beers. That's just not going to work.

Huck

 

[Pengwuino]

It is... but I am not sure what the number means. let me check it out...

Ok here we go

The amount of alcohol in your blood stream is referred to as Blood Alcohol Level (BAL). It is recorded in milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, or milligrams percent. For example, a BAL of .10 means that 1/10 of 1 percent (or 1/1000) of your total blood content is alcohol.