Natalie Wilson/Old Gold & Black
According to Student Health Service records, a total of 45 students under the influence of alcohol sought help from Student Health Services (SHS) or the WFU EMS during the first four weeks of school — 24 of these students were hospitalized.
In total, six more students have sought medical help and six less students have been sent to the hospital compared to last year at this time.
This year’s overall trend has shown that between four and seven more intoxicated students each week have shown up at SHS compared to the first three weeks of school last year.
However, during the fourth week last year, a spike occurred where 19 students sought help and 16 were hospitalized compared to the 10 who sought help and 6 were hospitalized this past week.
An important consideration when looking at these numbers is that any student who has even had one drink and is later sent to the hospital is counted in these statistics.
“Just because a student is sent to the hospital under the influence of alcohol doesn’t mean they are incapacitated and vomiting everywhere,” said Darren Aaron, the associate director of Student Health. “Even if they are 22 years old and all they had was a glass of wine with dinner and they fell and hit their head, they are going to the hospital. Because they have alcohol in their system, that means they are considered impaired.”
When considering when to send students to the hospital, the staff ranks the student on the scale of impaired, intoxicated and incapacitated.
Breathalyzers are not used at SHS because they are not always accurate in predicting exactly where the student is in the curve of alcohol intake.
The student might have stopped drinking for several hours and is still unresponsive or they may have just had several drinks before they arrived at SHS and are still getting inebriated. The staff checks vital signs like pulse, blood pressure and responsiveness to rank the student on the scale.
If any serious injuries have occurred, especially to the head, the student is immediately referred to the emergency room.
Many may think that most hospitalizations would be first year students, but of the number of alcohol-induced hospitalizations this year, more sophomore students have been sent to the hospital than freshman. 38 percent of the students hospitalized were sophomores, while slightly fewer, 36 percent, were freshmen.
Graphic by Erin Patterson/ Old Gold & Black
“The first year students are usually the majority of the ones sent to the hospital,” Aaron said. “But from just looking at the numbers, when I look at previous years it does seem like where there is a spike is in the number of sophomores who have reported to Student Health or have been hospitalized.”
Many sophomore students were shocked to hear that their class had the highest number of hospitalizations.
“I think it’s a confidence thing for sophomores,” said sophomore Jake Cohen. “We think we can handle more than we actually can.”
Similarly, sophomore Jessie Luttrell thinks that the sophomore class often overthinks their limits.
“We think we’re experienced and that we have it figured out,” Luttrell said. “We mistakenly think we’re invincible.”
Yet this irregular spike in the number of sophomores hospitalized shouldn’t overshadow the 16 freshmen who were hospitalized this year.
“There is definitely a pressure for freshman students to drink, in my opinion,” said one freshman, who asked to remain anonymous due to the nature of the topic. “I don’t see the number [of freshman hospitalizations] as crazy, because the workload at Wake Forest is no joke, so I understand people wanting to go out and have a good time to relieve some stress.”
In the end, Aaron emphasized that all possible options to prevent overdrinking on campus are important contributions to the discussion.
“Anything that can be done to reduce harm and curb high risk drinking needs to be considered,” Aaron said.