Student Who Tore Her THROAT After Cheap Vodka Binge Quits Alcohol

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A boozed-up student who tore her windpipe vomiting for 24 hours has warned against cheap drink offers.

Megan Thomason, 21, downed three treble vodka and Cokes for £2.89 each and then went on to visit more bars on a night out.

She began to vomit early the next day and ended up in hospital for a week with surgical emphysema, a swelling in the face and neck that can cause suffocation.

The University of Hull ­business student has quit booze after admitting she “could have died” following her night out in York.

Megan, of Barlby, North Yorkshire, said: “I want to warn people.

“It was the worst experience of my life. Students think ‘drinks are £1 so we can drink more’ – and that’s not good.

“Being drunk is classed as normal and I gave in to peer pressure,” she said.

“I’d had three drinks but because they were triples it was actually the equivalent of nine drinks and you don’t think of that at the time.”

At about 7am she woke up and felt like she was going to be sick but managed to restrain herself until her stepdad came to pick her up.

Throughout the half-an-hour drive to her home Megan was throwing up into a bag.

This was the start of 24 hours of vomiting and retching which damaged to her throat.

A doctor was called and she was given some anti-nausea medication but after her condition didn’t improve she was taken to hospital.

The third-year student was brought to the A&E department for more anti-sickness injections and they seemed to work, until doctors noticed swelling in her face.

Megan said: “They realised my face had blown up, my cheeks looked a bit like a hamster with all the food in them.”

At this point doctors were not sure what had torn her windpipe but by the next morning her neck had swollen as well.

“Basically it felt like bubble wrap inside my cheeks and my mouth and chest,” she explained.

She had to spend the next six days in hospital, not eating or drinking, to see if her throat would heal.

“It is only now I realise just how serious it was, if I had eaten I could have got blood poisoning from the food or I could have choked if it had gone into my lungs.

“I was just in shock when I realised how serious it was. It was just one night out for a few drinks and it left me in hospital for a week, I could have died,” she added.

The student, who studies at Hull University’s Scarborough campus, said although she takes full responsibility for how much she had drunk, she believes drinks deals encourage people looking to save money to drink more.

Megan, who is going into her final year in September, said she understands skint students want cheap drinks and bars put offers on to cater for that.

She said: “Students think drinks are a pound so therefore we can afford to drink more, that’s what we automatically think – if its cheaper we can drink more drinks and that’s not good, people can have 10 to 20 drinks a night.

“I would say to people you don’t realise what one night out could do. Obviously mine was pretty extreme but if you are going out once twice a week and throwing up you could actually be tearing something slowly as you go along each week.”

Megan has been admitted to hospital with vomiting twice before following nights out, but said the most recent incident in June was so serious she now suffers nightmares about what happened.

She has been told she doesn’t have the enzymes to break down the alcohol in her body.

Megan is supported by her administrator mum, Justin Bean, 45, and her site supervisor stepdad, Gary Bean, 48.

“They said its not worth me drinking again and I should remember how awful it was for me and them,” she said.

Professor Paul Wallace, chief medical adviser to alcohol education charity Drinkaware, says: “The main danger of drinking alcoholic drinks is the alcohol itself and its effects on your brain and your body.

“It doesn’t much matter whether you drink it in wine, beer, spirits or anything else – the alcohol is what causes the effects on your brain and your body.

“And the more you have, the more dangerous it becomes.”