The New Zealand Medical Journal has highlighted Canterbury’s binge-drinking culture, citing reports of three men hospitalised in separate cases after inadvertently swallowing bottle caps.
According to the journal, Canterbury was grappling with a troubling binge-drinking culture, with Christchurch recording the second-highest weekly alcohol intake among New Zealand’s regions.
New Zealand Medical Journal
The ramifications of this behaviour was evident in local emergency departments, where 4–5% of presentations were related to alcohol consumption.
The report details the unique and potentially life-threatening nature of the bottle cap incidents, saying that while inadvertent ingestion is rare, the sharp edges of bottle caps can pose serious health risks.
Each of the three patients involved had a history of heavy drinking and were unable to recall the moments leading up to their ingestion of the foreign bodies.
“It is suspected that ingestion took place during the rapid consumption of excess amounts of alcohol, compounded by the soporific effects of inebriation,” the report said.
The second patient was a 38-year-old man who required hospitalisation after arriving two days post accidental ingestion.
In the third case, a 55-year-old man had a bottle cap that had lodged in his stomach, making it difficult for the medical team to extract it due to the presence of food.
New Zealand Medical Journal
The process of retrieving these foreign objects via endoscopy can be challenging, according to the findings.
However, the authors suggest several preventative measures to mitigate the risks associated with binge drinking.
New Zealand Medical Journal
Recommendations include promoting the consumption of cold beer, which may induce a “brain freeze” that could slow drinking pace, encouraging the purchase of more expensive beers as a financial deterrent, and suggesting alternatives like champagne or wine—beverages that have not been linked to cases of esophageal obstruction.
