Make that a double
Doctors plugged an Italian tourist into a drip-feed of vodka to save him at a hospital in Australia that ran out of the medicinal alcohol it would normally have used for treatment.
The 24-year-old Italian was brought to Mackay Base Hospital in northeastern Queensland and was diagnosed as having ingested a large quantity of ethylene glycol, a common ingredient of anti-freeze that can cause renal failure.
The man was given pharmaceutical-grade alcohol when he arrived, but the hospital's supplies soon ran out. So they went out and bought a case of vodka.
''We decided the next best way to get alcohol into the man's system was by feeding him vodka through a naso gastric tube,'' a doctor said.
''The patient was drip-fed about three standard drinks an hour for three days in the intensive care unit,''
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Innovative Aussies
In details just released by the hospital, Dr Pascal Gelperowicz from Poland, who led the man's treatment with Dr Todd Fraser, said the man was unconscious on arrival and his treatment was started immediately with pharmaceutical-grade alcohol, which works as an antidote to the poison.
But the hospital's alcohol supplies were soon exhausted.
"We quickly used all the available vials of 100 per cent alcohol and decided the next best way to get alcohol into the man's system was by feeding him spirits through a naso gastric tube," Dr Gelperowicz said.
Dr Fraser said while the treatment was unconventional and had not been used in Australia before but was common practice in Dr Gelperowicz country of origin, it was very successful, with the patient having now made a full recovery.
But the hospital's alcohol supplies were soon exhausted.
"We quickly used all the available vials of 100 per cent alcohol and decided the next best way to get alcohol into the man's system was by feeding him spirits through a naso gastric tube," Dr Gelperowicz said.
Dr Fraser said while the treatment was unconventional and had not been used in Australia before but was common practice in Dr Gelperowicz country of origin, it was very successful, with the patient having now made a full recovery.
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Alex Jones
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