College campus program to prevent alcohol poisoning goes nationwide.

SUZANNE Fields' son was the kind of teen who tried to do everything right. Concerned about his friends' safety, the Northwestern University freshman often left events early to walk students back to their dorms. At parties, he counted his friends' drinks. Sadly, no one counted the 19-year-old's drinks the night he died from acute alcohol intoxication at an on-campus party in June 2008.

The death of Fields' son just three days before he was due to head home for the summer sent shock waves reverberating from Northwestern's Evanston, Ill., campus to the campus of New York's Stony Brook State University, where Fields is a professor of clinical medicine. Shaken and saddened by the tragedy, then-university president Shirley Strum Kenny asked Fields what she could do to help.

"I told her I wanted to start a program at Stony Brook to prevent similar deaths," Fields, MD, a practicing geriatrician, told The Nation's Health.

The need for an awareness program became clear at the funeral, where Fields learned the only intervention offered by fellow students the night of her son's death involved placing him on his side to prevent him from choking on vomit.

"Although they received online education about alcohol, no one had taught them you could die from this," Fields said. "They thought he could just sleep it off, but the next morning when his friends went in to check on him, he was dead. They didn't realize that a stupor student was a potentially dying student."

Acting on Fields' request, Kenny instructed key Stony Brook university staff and student leaders to develop a comprehensive bystander intervention program that would be offered to all students. In addition, she commissioned Milton Glaser, creator of the "I Love New York" logo, to design marketing materials for the program, including a logo, banners and posters. From the collaboration emerged the Red Watch Band movement. Less than a year old, the movement's mission is to provide campus community members with the knowledge, awareness and skills to prevent toxic drinking deaths, and to promote a student culture of kindness, responsibility, compassion and respect.

The campaign's red and white watch reflects the school's colors and symbolizes a "band" of students who will "watch" out for one another when every second counts, said Lara Hunter, LCSW, coordinator of alcohol and drug clinical services at Stony Brook State University. To jump-start the program, Target stores donated 2,000 watches, which students receive when they complete the training. About 140 Stony Brook students have completed the four-hour training since the program launched in March, Hunter said. Moreover, more than 40 universities, colleges and high schools across the nation are working with Hunter to implement the program on their campuses.

Red Watch Band training includes certification in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and teaches students how to recognize and appropriately respond to the signs and symptoms of an acutely intoxicated student. Myths about alcohol first aid are debunked during training.

"Students say you should turn the person on their side, walk them around the room, give them caffeine, give them a cold shower," Hunter said. "These are common myths that most students carry around with them, and they mean well, but those things aren't going to prevent alcohol poisoning."

Trainers also use role-playing techniques to teach students to call 911.

"A 911 call seems simplistic, but it's actually more complicated to make that call," Hunter said. "They're afraid of getting in trouble with the university. They're afraid their friend is going to be angry at them the next day. If someone is passed out, you need to call 911 or they might not wake up in the morning, and that's what happens too frequently across the country."

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, alcohol-related deaths and heavy drinking episodes have been rising on college campuses over the past decade. About 1,800 college students ages 18-24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including alcohol poisonings, motor vehicle crashes and falls.

"We know that students want to do the right things," Hunter said. "They don't want to see their friend at the party die. They want to do the right thing and this (program) gives them the tools."

Stony Brook university senior Charles Rico completed Red Watch Band training this summer so that he would know how to appropriately intervene.

"There's always that one person who gets extremely intoxicated, and everyone else brushes it off," Rico told The Nation's Health. "Most people think, 'Hey, let them sleep it off, they'll be fine,' but they can die."

A premed student, Rico said he is now telling all his friends, especially those involved in fraternities, to take the training.

"I got a red watch and I'm very proud of it," he said. "I feel like I'm a soldier battling the myths of alcohol poisoning and alcohol abuse."

For more information, visit www.redwatchband.org.