Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail

[scotpens]

I had no idea this stuff was being used regularly in bars. It creates a "steaming cauldron" effect and, according to the linked article, is safe as long as the nitrogen has completely evaporated before the drink is consumed.

I'm not in favor of nanny-state laws, but should this practice even be legal? I mean, it's fucking LIQUID NITROGEN, for Christ's sake!


Link

 

[RoJoHen]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

As a bartender myself, I'm pretty sure I would refuse to even make such a drink, let alone serve it to someone to consume.

 

[gturner]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

No, it should not be legal. Not only is there a significant risk of incredible internal tissue damage if the bartender slips up, but when liquid air vaporizes in the stomach it can be violent. A US chemistry teacher was hospitalized for months after drinking some and had to have quite a bit of his insides removed.

This girl, gorgeous, 6'4", will now have to eat like a supermodel for the rest of her life unless someone will donate a stomach, or at least enough stomach tissue to form a small one, which actually doesn't seem that unlikely considering the various weight-loss surgeries that are popular.

ETA: And keeping liquid nitrogen around in a bar full of drunk people is about as bright as having a few bottles of concentrating nitric or sulfuric acid lying around.

 

[RoJoHen]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

Is liquid nitrogen not considered a hazardous material? Shouldn't you need some kind of special license or training to use it?

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

Liquid Nitrogen isn't quite as terrifying and hazardous as Terminator movies would leave us to believe. Remember, Nitrogen (granted as a gas) makes up most of our atmosphere.

But I certainly don't think any reputable business should be selling it to people to drink considering the stuff is like -320 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

[RoJoHen]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

I suppose you don't need a special license or anything to use a flaming stovetop or anything. I guess liquid nitrogen is about as hazardous as that, but still. Cocktails shouldn't have to come with instructions on how to drink them without damaging major organs.

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

Really, we shouldn't be making cocktails out of -320F liquids. The concept alone should tell someone that it's inviting trouble. Dry Ice is "only" around 100 degrees below 0 on the Fahrenheit scale and that can cause instant, serious, burns to your skin if you handle it. It's often used for "smoking drinks" but it sublimates fairly quickly in small pieces especially if it's in a liquid.

I've no idea what would compel a bartender to serve someone a -320F drink. Prayers and thoughts to the girl, if the place was serving the drink she probably assumed it was "safe" to drink.

I don't think LiN should be a controlled substance (again, it's basically harmless) but maybe some regulations on what you can do with it. (i.e. not serve it for people to consume.)

I mean, you can easily buy bleach, ammonia without any trouble and neither of those can be safely drank and combined they create a highly poisonous gas. If a restaurant or bar was selling drinks with either of those substances in it then plenty of agencies would have words to say.

Hope the best for the girl, she can still live a long, fairly normal, life but it's going to be a bit harder for her to do so. I do wonder how this will impact her child-bearing prospects? Doesn't pregnancy cause a woman to need to eat more? Will her body be able to handle the stresses of a pregnancy and not having a stomach to properly have plenty of stored food for energy?

She's certainly going to have a rougher life ahead of her now, but maybe medical improvements between now and whenever will evolve enough to get her a transplanted stomach or to be able to create one for her using stem cells, "pixie dust" or whatever. Certainly not 100% bleak for her.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

What the hell kind of drink is this? I wish the description popping into my mind weren't that it looks like a "warp core breach," but it does. I cannot see what would possess someone to take an idea seen on TV (and probably on other shows too, under different names) and think it was actually safe IRL just because it looked cool on screen. Someone who is making food and drinks is SUPPOSED to have sufficient knowledge to know what is dangerous and what is not. There is a duty to the public involved.

At the VERY least, it seems like something like this should be up there with fugu in terms of the regulations and control required. But the difference with fugu is that there is a way to do it with only a remote possibility of harm--AND Japan actually regulates the industry with appropriate strictness and severity...something I truly doubt most other countries have the wherewithal and the strictness to do. I don't see how you could have liquid nitrogen without the significant possibility of harm unless you had sensitive monitoring instruments in and around them to make absolutely sure none of the substance was around and the temperature had risen sufficiently to be safe.

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

The "Warp Core Breach" used dry ice to create the "smoldering" effect. Something that sublimates, quickly, into a gas never reaching a liquid state so you never really consume it. It also doesn't have too meaningful an impact on the temperature of the drink it's in. (IIRC it takes a LOT of exposure to dry ice and even LiN to make something "freeze.")

Putting some dry ice in a drink is pretty common to create that smoldering effect and, again, mostly harmless as it's not consumed. Putting LiN into a drink with the intent for the -320 liquid to be consumed? Very, very different and stupid.

 

[Starkers]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

This BBC article about the use of nitrogen is quite interesting, especially the comment from one professor who says he's surprised anyone could ingest much because it's so cold.

I used to have warts on some of my fingers when I was younger and every few months I had them burned off with liquid nitrogen so I have a healthy respect for it!

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

This BBC article about the use of nitrogen is quite interesting, especially the comment from one professor who says he's surprised anyone could ingest much because it's so cold.

I used to have warts on some of my fingers when I was younger and every few months I had them burned off with liquid nitrogen so I have a healthy respect for it!

I had a wart removed with LiN once too.

 

[Starkers]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

Not nice is it!

 

[scotpens]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

. . . Putting some dry ice in a drink is pretty common to create that smoldering effect and, again, mostly harmless as it's not consumed. Putting LiN into a drink with the intent for the -320 liquid to be consumed? Very, very different and stupid.

If you'll read the OP and the linked article, the intent is not to imbibe until all the liquid nitrogen has evaporated. Still seems way too risky to be served to the public. How are bartenders expected to know when all the nitrogen has returned to a gaseous state? Do they have chemistry degrees?

 

[RoJoHen]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

. . . Putting some dry ice in a drink is pretty common to create that smoldering effect and, again, mostly harmless as it's not consumed. Putting LiN into a drink with the intent for the -320 liquid to be consumed? Very, very different and stupid.

If you'll read the OP and the linked article, the intent is not to imbibe until all the liquid nitrogen has evaporated. Still seems way too risky to be served to the public. How are bartenders expected to know when all the nitrogen has returned to a gaseous state? Do they have chemistry degrees?

Besides, drunk people are hard enough to monitor without throwing dangerous chemicals into the mix. Everything about this is just irresponsible.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

Local bars won't even serve a flaming drink and these idiots use liquid nitrogen?

 

[trekkiedane]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

Besides, drunk people are hard enough to monitor without throwing dangerous chemicals into the mix. Everything about this is just irresponsible.

The alcohol-industry feels under attack so they come up with all sorts of gimmickry to sell their products.
Sometimes the gimmick is dangerous though; spiked sodas (alcoholic beverages containing as much, or more, sugar than a soda) are directed at the younger segment of the market and thus becomes popular amongst under-age drinkers who have not yet become acquainted with liquor but still like their sweets... Pressurised spray-cans containing alcoholic beverages are dangerous as they make it a lot more likely that someone inhales aerosols, containing not only alcohol (which is bad enough to get in your lungs) but also sugar, especially as that someone might be under the influence already... This new craze about foggy drinks is just more of the same ol' thing - But in new bottles, as it were.

Yes, it's irresponsible, about as irresponsible as letting drunk people play with fireworks, and should not be allowed.

In fact it's so irresponsible that it shouldn't even be necessary to make illegal as no sober person should even get the idea unless they were a moron of course.

 

[RoJoHen]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

Besides, drunk people are hard enough to monitor without throwing dangerous chemicals into the mix. Everything about this is just irresponsible.

The alcohol-industry feels under attack

It does? Around here, the alcohol industry is one of the few industries that is thriving!

Yes, it's irresponsible, about as irresponsible as letting drunk people play with fireworks, and should not be allowed.

As fireworks are illegal in my state, this is not an issue for me.

In fact it's so irresponsible that it shouldn't even be necessary to make illegal as no sober person should even get the idea unless they were a moron of course.

This is what boggles my mind. A bartender coming up with this while playing around? Sure, I can see that happening. Bartenders play around with things all the time. But what bar owner would order a tank of liquid nitrogen in the first place?!

 

[trekkiedane]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

This is what boggles my mind. A bartender coming up with this while playing around? Sure, I can see that happening. Bartenders play around with things all the time. But what bar owner would order a tank of liquid nitrogen in the first place?!

It's probably delivered in a (relatively small) dewar though.

Someone up-thread mentioned that it probably comes from someone watching a little too many SciFi or Fantasy films/TV shows and not being able to discern between fantasy and reality -I can see it happening this way.

Fireworks are only legal on new year's eve in Denmark. Alas that is also the time of year most alcohol is consumed

 

[MacLeod]

Re: Teen Girl Has Stomach Removed after Drinking Liquid Nitrogen Cockt

The drink itself is not dangerous if prepared correctly and drunk when it is safe to do so i.e. after the nitrogen has dissapted. It would appear according to the article that at least the former is true.

The question becomes ensuring that people who order the drink are aware they need to let the nitrogen dissapte before consuming it. I suspect if we did a snap poll on knowledge of that the result would be something along the lines, "I wasn't aware".