Summary of Ge Vang's Thursday presentation

College drinking in La Crosse is a problem. So says Ge Vang, Western Technical College’s AODA counselor. Mr. Vang came to our class yesterday morning and presented us with much information about college-age drinking in this city. He began with a YouTube video of a Milwaukee news story about the La Crosse river drownings. In that video, the news anchors interviewed several students who claimed that a serial killer was luring their peers down to the Mississippi and pushing them in. These students loudly proclaimed that they were drunk, but that being drunk wasn’t enough to get them down to the river and falling into it. According to the police and other authorities in La Crosse, though, the only link between the eight recent drownings was a high blood alcohol level. All eight victims had blood alcohol content at nearly three times the legal driving limit of .08. Ge Vang also presented a slideshow of statistics on college drinking in La Crosse and in Wisconsin as a whole. The slideshow pointed out that Wisconsin ranks number one in the country in the number of alcohol users, DUIs, and binge drinking. In La Crosse, it said, twenty-four people have drowned in the Mississippi in 30 years. Many more statistics referred to the numbers of young people who are killed or injured because of alcohol use. After the presentation, Ge Vang gave us time for questions and answers. He stressed the importance of knowing one’s limits when consuming alcohol, and putting safety and health first.