State Rep. Christine Johnson said a college student who died because he drank too much liquor inspired her to sponsor a bill that could encourage teens to call 911 if their friends overdose on alcohol.
“It’s a very important first step,” Johnson said about House Bill 277.
The legislation could result in less serious sentences for teens who seek medical help when someone is suffering from alcohol poisoning.
“What I want to do is encourage kids, even when they are participating in irresponsible, high-risk behavior, to do the responsible thing and seek emergency medical care when it is warranted,” Johnson said in a telephone interview. “The judge is going to consider your good deed a mitigating factor in sentencing.”
HB 277 would not grant full immunity for suspects.
Someone who is younger than 21 years old who is found possessing or consuming alcohol and in the same incident reports somebody suffering from alcohol poisoning, “may be considered by the sentencing court for a mitigation of the sentence due to having reported the endangered person,” according to the bill.
“There was a young man who attended my daughter’s high school and went to USU,” Johnson said. “He basically had a bottle of vodka put to his mouth and he had to drink almost all of it.”
But family members of former Utah State University student Michael Starks have not endorsed the bill.
“They really want to do a full-on amnesty, and that’s just too much to ask here in Utah,” Johnson said. “I can only imagine the heartbreak that the family has dealt with to know that their son laid there for hours and nobody did anything.”
The state House of Representatives voted 73-0 to approve the bill. The state Senate approved HB 277 with a vote of 23-0.
Johnson said she expects Gov. Gary Herbert to sign the legislation into law.
“It’s a very reasonable and palatable solution to bring some sort of statute that addresses the problem,” Johnson said.
The bill might have helped save the life of Coalville resident Joe Hunter, a 17-year-old who died from alcohol poisoning while drinking with friends in March 2007, North Summit School District Superintendent Steve Carlsen said.
“Some of them were in high school,” Carlsen said. “They knew he was having problems and they didn’t know what to do. With the knowledge that they wouldn’t get in trouble, I think they would have been more prone to take the kid to the hospital or call the ambulance.”
The teens who were drinking with Hunter that night knew the boy was having problems, Summit County Attorney David Brickey said.
“All of them knew how much, potentially, he had drank and rather than step forward and deal with it, they tried to hide it,” Brickey said in a telephone interview. “As a result, we tried to hold those boys accountable.”
HB 277 could encourage more kids to call for emergency help when their friends are overdosing on alcohol, Brickey said.
“It makes sense. We’re trying to encourage young people who are not always making the best decisions to begin with, to step forward and make a tough decision which they would be inclined to normally ignore,” he said. “We’re hoping this would encourage a kid, rather than ignoring that reality of somebody getting sick and potentially dying, to take that initial step and make that phone call.”