Shortly after Wiesn-start first beer-like

Alcohol poisoning at the Munich Oktoberfest: Shortly after Wiesn-start first „beer corpse“

09/22/2013

Already one and a half hours after the beginning of the Oktoberfest in Munich, the first patient with alcohol intoxication had landed in the sanitary station. In previous years, patients came even earlier.

After one and a half hours alcohol poisoning
Last Saturday, the 180th Munich Oktoberfest was opened. Around 1.30 pm, about one and a half hours after the beginning of the folk festival, a young woman with alcoholic poisoning was already brought by her friend to the helpers of the Munich Red Cross at the Wiesn Sanitätsstation. The head of the station, Frithjof Wagner, explained that the woman drank only a single liter (a liter) of beer. He warned however: „The Wiesn beer has a higher alcohol content than the usual bottled beer.“ And further: „The effect unfolds especially when you have nothing in the stomach, at higher temperatures and with hasty enjoyment much faster than usual.“

Beer corpses before the start
In previous years there were such „Bierleichen“, as the alcohol victims are also colloquially called, often hours before the opening of the Munich festival. Although beer will be sold at 12 o'clock after the start, many visitors will „vorglühen“. An elderly Wiesn visitor was brought to hospital this year before the start in the morning because of cardiac arrhythmia.

Alcohol a cell poison
Last year, the physicians had to treat 739 visitors for alcohol poisoning during the Oktoberfest. Overall, around 8,160 people had to be cared for at the BRK sanitary station. The Director of the Federal Center for Health Education (BzgA), Prof. dr. Elisabeth Pott, warned years ago that many people do not realize or neglect that „Alcohol a cell poison“ is which „can damage almost all organs in the body and, for example, cause heart muscle and cancer.“ (Ad)

Image: Manfred Walker