May 28, 1999
Brush with death sobers one youth
By Eric Newhouse
Tribune Projects Editor
Mike‘s life was turned around by a kegger that nearly snuffed it out at 16.
"I‘ve been clean ever since," said the high school sophomore. "And I‘ve been doing stuff with my family, stuff that we never used to do before.
"It‘s brought us a lot closer together," he said.
Keggers and house parties are a rite of spring for many Montana high school students. Proms and graduation ceremonies traditionally trigger illegal teen-age drinking.
It‘s particularly dangerous, experts say, because teens drink competitively, their bodies are unaccustomed to alcohol and their developing judgment easily can be clouded.
A handful of Montana teens die each spring in car wrecks after such parties.
But Mike‘s brush with death came during a kegger on a mountainside one chilly night late last March.
"Those kids were lucky," said Chouteau County Sheriff Doug Williams. "It was really close."
A friend, Tim, suggested a camping trip with five other friends, and alcohol was on the agenda. Most of the teens had been drinking together nearly every weekend for some time.
Tim brought a couple of coolers of beer. "I have no idea where it came from," said Mike, "but sometimes people buy it for you."
They began drinking about 5 p.m. as they set up their tents in the Highwood Mountains.
About four hours later, they were feeling no pain. Suddenly, seven carloads of partying seniors showed up, and the whole atmosphere changed.
"We had a fire about as big as a dining room table, and one kid had a set of 15-inch speakers on his car," Mike said.
"It got real loud, and there was plenty of beer," he added.
Some of the sophomores went back to their tents, but Mike and Tim stayed up to party with the seniors.
"I was trying to keep up with them," he said, "but I‘d found a bottle of vodka beside the fire and I had switched to that."
Tim passed out about 11 p.m. and nearly fell in the fire. He was placed in his tent.
Shortly afterward, Mike blacked out.
The sheriff‘s department hit the party about half an hour later, tipped by a suspicious parent, and found two dozen drunken teens around a blazing fire. Snowdrifts were studded with chilling beer cans.
"Everybody ran and threw their beer cans away," Mike said.
"There were a couple of (marijuana) bongs there, and someone threw one in the back of the new truck I had just bought," he said, "so it got impounded."
That‘s what Mike was told, anyway. He doesn‘t actually remember anything of the bust. He was unconscious and nearly dead.
"The first teen I found was face down," Chouteau County Sheriff‘s Deputy John Oeleis said. "When I touched him, he was cold. I thought he might have been dead, but I finally got a very faint and rapid carotid pulse on him."
Oeleis rolled Mike over, found his face and mouth were filled with mud, and cleaned out his airways so that he could breath.
"I don‘t know how he was breathing," the deputy said.
While he was trying to bring Mike back to life, Oeleis heard a gurgling noise in a nearby tent and thought someone was choking.
"I had trouble getting in because the tent had partially collapsed and the second youth was lying against the door," Oeleis said. "He was lying on his back with a puddle of vomit on his face, partially held in by the fabric of the tent."
The deputy rolled Tim over and cleaned out his mouth so he could breath without choking.
"He was totally covered with vomit, and he was very cold because he was lying on the fabric floor of the tent, which was no warmer than the ground," Oeleis said.
Deputies called for the Mercy Flight chopper to air-evacuate the teens, but later sent them by ground ambulance to Benefis Healthcare.
"Medical personnel felt their chances of survival were not good," Oeleis said.
Five other teens were apprehended, but the rest splashed through the creek, ran up a hillside and escaped.
Williams said his deputies confiscated the liquor, then built up the fire and left. They were afraid the wet teens might freeze in the woods if officers remained on the scene.
"I woke up in the hospital and saw my parents," Mike said. "They were just glad I was alive."
Later, Mike‘s parents grounded him for six months after he got his truck back. He pleaded guilty to minor in possession of alcohol and possession of drug paraphernalia in Fort Benton, was fined $345 and ordered to receive alcohol counseling.
"I didn‘t think any of this could ever happen to me," he said. "Almost dying, getting my truck taken away, it just isn‘t worth it."
Drinking younger
"Kids are starting to drink in the fifth and sixth grades," said Candace Atwood, an addictions therapist for ChemCare Associates. "Most parents just dismiss it, thinking, ‘Yeah, we drank ,too, when we were kids.‘
"But these are totally different times," she said. "They‘re starting so much earlier, and they‘re drinking so much more."
Atwood, who runs the county‘s MIP counseling program, said teens steal alcohol from their parents, shoplift it from stores, get it from older friends brothers or sisters, or pay transients to buy it for them.
"And there are tons and tons of fake IDs that kids make," she added. "These aren‘t just the problem kids, but the cream-of-the-crop kids."
Because their bodies are still developing, teens experience alcohol more severely than adults.
"They‘re drinking lots more than adults and their addiction rate is twice that of adults," Atwood said. "When they start drinking as teen-agers, it takes less time for them to become addicted than it does for adults."
Most teens drink
A new survey of 15,455 Montana eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-graders shows about one quarter of the students have never taken a drink, but nearly the same percentage admitted they have used alcohol on 40 or more occasions.
Half told researchers they would take a drink if offered, even though they know it‘s wrong.
And the vast majority doubt the police or their parents will catch them.
Fifty-nine percent said they took their first drink before they were 15.
That‘s a major concern, because the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says kids who begin drinking before the age of 15 are four times more likely to become problem drinkers.
More than 40 percent of those who began drinking before 15 become alcohol dependent at some point in their lives, it said.
"My mom was an alcoholic, so I‘ve been drinking as long as I can remember," said Allison Bayne, a 16-year-old sophomore at Great Falls High School who recently completed a treatment program at Benefis Healthcare.
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In foster homes since she was 5, Bayne said she used drugs and alcohol as a way of escaping the pain.
"I‘d find myself drifting apart from my foster family, not wanting to be a part, not focusing on my school work, just being selfish," she said.
Using booze for escape is pretty common, Bayne said.
"At my age, kids drink to get drunk," she said. "Society isn‘t exactly wholesome and homes aren‘t what they used to be, so a lot of kids drink to forget their problems and their pain.
"And a lot do it to get sex — they say they slept with so-and-so, but that it‘s OK because they were drunk," she said.
"Being drunk can be an excuse to do all kinds of bad things."
Teens in court
Tuesday afternoon is MIP day in Municipal Court, and it transforms the Civic Center.
Teens sit on the steps outside waiting for their parents, or they crowd the courtroom in the basement waiting to appear before Judge Nancy Luth.
There were 696 MIP charges filed last year, up from 593 in 1997 and 582 in 1996.
"I got busted for drinking in a motel after the senior prom," Christina said. "I called my mom and asked her to come get me, but she said she couldn‘t because she‘d been drinking, too."
It was Christina‘s third conviction for minor in possession of alcohol.
"I keep telling her she‘s got to learn to quit getting caught," her mom said. "When I was her age, I was a lot faster."
One recent Tuesday, about 30 kids and their parents packed the courtroom.
Most had been charged with minor in possession of tobacco, but at least five had been charged with alcohol possession.
One young teen‘s attorney had negotiated a plea bargain under which she would plead guilty to three MIPs over the past year and promise to remain in high school if prosecutors would drop three other outstanding MIPs.
"Six MIPs is uncommon, but it‘s not rare," said Tony Lucas, a city attorney.
Luth told the girl, Nicole, that she had a major problem.
"You need to take a hard look at your drinking," Luth said.
"When you are 16 years old and you blow a .206 into the machine (more than twice the legal intoxication limit), you need to get a grip on your life."
Nicole was fined $660, ordered to perform 40 hours of community service, and warned of the consequences of continued drinking when she turns 18 in another month.
"If you get another MIP, I guarantee you that you will go to jail," Luth said. "There will be no hesitation on the part of this court to send you there."
Luth is no shrinking violet and doesn‘t hesitate to challenge a defiant youth.
One teen, Jennifer, told Luth she had been caught drinking in a car after she had told her mother that she would be at a going-away party at which there would be no alcohol.
"You lied to your mother," said Luth, "and I think you owe her an apology."
Jennifer mumbled she was sorry without looking at her mother.
"I‘ve got a 10-year-old son who can apologize more sincerely than that," snapped Luth. "Please tell your mother you‘ve been irresponsible, you‘re sorry, and you won‘t do it again."
Jennifer did, but she left the courtroom with an angry flush to her cheeks.
"We see all kinds of kids in here," said Lucas after court. "Some are just kids who are doing kid stuff.
"But some are 16-year-olds who blow a .26," he added. "And that‘s usually a sign that they‘ve been drinking a lot for a long time."
Facing jail at 18
When teen-agers turn 18, the laws change suddenly. Instead of a fine and community service, those convicted of MIPs face the possibility of jail time.
In Justice Court last week, Justice Mike Smartt was waiting to arraign 19-year-old Misty Brott, who had been charged with her eighth offense of minor in possession of alcohol.
"Is Misty Brott in incarceration awaiting arraignment," the judge asked a closed-circuit television monitoring the regional jail.
No answer. Then Brott‘s brother Dale, 21, clad in bright orange coveralls, told the judge he thought she had been transferred out.
"Is Misty Brott in this courtroom?" asked the judge.
No answer.
Later, Cascade County Attorney Brant Light said a warrant would be issued for Brott‘s arrest, but he said the justice system has been relatively successful.
"There are some towns around the state that don‘t do anything about kids who drink," said Light, "but we cite them, bring them in, fine them, require them to do community service, take their drivers‘ licenses away sometimes, and impose consequences on them.
"And we bring their parents in — sometimes I would send an officer out to bring in parents who failed to appear — and encourage them to take their own separate actions against their children.
"Most of those kids we only see once, so the system does work," he said.
"Of course, there are some multiple offenders, but I don‘t see how we could do any more under the current statutes."
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