PrimeTime: Deadly 21st Birthdays

Oct. 19 -- At midnight on his 21st birthday, Brad McCue, a Michigan State University junior, went with his friends to a local bar in East Lansing to celebrate.

Twenty-four shots later, he had beaten his friends' record of downing 23 shots, and his friends had scribbled the number 24 on his forehead to remind him the next morning of just how many drinks he'd had.

But Brad never woke up.

Cause of death: ethanol poisoning after consuming a large amount of alcoholic beverage within a short period of time.

Across the country, college students partake in this rite of passage some call "21 for 21," in which they drink their age in shots. According to some parents, college students and health professionals, such high-risk drinking, which one university official calls "celebratory drinking," is an epidemic.

A Cultural Expectation

"Celebratory drinking is a real problem," says Dennis Martell, of Michigan State's health center, "because some of these people never drank like that before."

Martell explains that the phenomenon is particularly dangerous because "it's the time when all rules are abandoned and you drink excessively with intense pressure or competition from peers."

"I really hadn't ever drank like this before," says Nick Meese, an Arizona State University student who was hospitalized after attempting to down 21 shots in one hour. "I felt like my insides were being ripped out of me. I had bleeding and the blood was in my vomit too … I felt so horrible on my birthday."

The problem is compounded, explains Martell, by a cultural expectation. "Most people just think they have to go through it," he says. "Whether it's prom or graduation or a 21st birthday, suddenly the rules change."

Encouraging Responsible Drinking

According to Dr. Dean Sienko, the medical examiner who watched Brad die of acute alcohol poisoning, excessive drinking "is the most serious public health problem that you face as a university community, as a community that works with young people."