ER NURSE GIVES SUMMIT COUNTY STUDENTS 'DOSE OF REALITY'

Lecture Warns Against Dangers Of Substance Abuse

FARMERS KORNER - An emergency room nurse from Maine schooled Summit
High School students on substance abuse this week, demonstrating what
awaits for those who visit the ER with a gut full of drugs or alcohol.
"I guarantee that if you enter drugs and alcohol into your life,
something is going to suffer," said registered nurse Linda Dutil. "I
guarantee it."

The teenagers echoed gagging sounds as Dutil flipped through a
slideshow - in the high school's auditorium - of a man receiving a
stomach pumping tube through the nose. She called their attention to
the pills mixed with vomit and blood on the chest. Fortunately, the
percentage of Summit County high-school students using drugs and
alcohol appears to have fallen in recent years.

In 2004, some 69.5 percent of students said they were alcohol-free in
a typical week; in 2007, that number increased to 75.4 percent,
according to the Summit Prevention Alliance.

"So that's what we're looking at is improvement in the data," SPA
executive director Tom Rose said. "We feel about 20 to 25 percent of
kids drink from time to time." The number of students who said they do
not use Illicit drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines
increased by more than 4 percent between 2004 and 2007, to 97 percent,
according to SPA.

"Most of them aren't using those drugs during that week that we
surveyed them," Rose said. "That doesn't mean there's not a lot of
experimentation going on." SHS senior Brandon Mannheimer said that
occasional drug or alcohol use is "pretty widespread."

"I choose to be clean, but I don't know a whole lot of people that
also share the same interest that I do - like to be clean and that
stuff," he said.

The statistical data was retrieved through the November 2007 Summit
Prevention Alliance social norms survey; a new survey is to be
conducted later this month. Nationally, the numbers reflect trends
similar to those of Summit County - but with more use reported overall.

Illicit drug use among 10th-graders in the past month fell slightly
between 2004 and 2007, from 18 percent to 17 percent, according to the
National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Alcohol use among 10th-graders in the past month also fell, from 35 to
33 percent. Dutil's presentation Monday also included photos of meth
users before and after their faces and teeth deteriorated. One man's
"after" photo included open, red sores covering the face and mouth.

"He looks like he got beat up," a student muttered from the audience.
The presentation concluded with Dutil explaining the untimely death of
Bob the high-school football player. The kid had given into peer
pressure and consumed more whiskey than his body could handle.

He died in the emergency room, Dutil said, and his two brothers and
little sister entered the room.

She said the girl threw herself across the body and said: "Please
don't die." Dutil travels the country speaking before middle-school,
high-school and college students about dangerous substances, seatbelt
safety and self mutilation.