Freshman unconscious after drinking at orientation session

By Lee Kyung-min

A first-year female university student fell unconscious after drinking alcohol during a school-organized orientation session for newly enrolled students, police said Friday.

The 19-year-old student from Gwangju National Education University (GNEU), surnamed Lee, was found lying unconscious around 3:30 a.m. on Thursday in a hallway of a resort in Hwasun, South Jeolla Province.

Lee was one of the university’s 300 newly enrolled students attending a four-day orientation session.

She was immediately taken to a nearby hospital, but she remained unconscious Friday, police said.

Lee choked on her own vomit, according to a hospital official.

“She could not breathe because there was something blocking her airway,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “It seems she had been too drunk to force it out of her airway and she was already having a hard time breathing because of an increased pulse rate due to alcohol.”

Before the incident, Lee drank three bottles of soju together with eight other students. The students told police that Lee became easily drunk by only a small amount of alcohol.

More than 20 faculty members, including the university’s president and department heads, were also at the orientation session.

School authorities said students did not follow the university’s alcohol ban during the trip.

“We did not allow drinking during the whole session. We instructed the students before we went on to the trip. It seems they had a small party in their room, after they finished a session that evening,” a university official said.

Police are investigating whether Lee was forced to take drinks by her senior students.

Excessive ― often times forced ― alcohol intake during university freshman orientation sessions in Korea have resulted in previous incidents, including deaths.

It is common practice for senior students to force the newly enrolled to drink in order to “teach the newbie how to behave,” meaning they have to drink if seniors order them to.

In February 2013, a drunken university student accidentally fell off a building and died in Boryeong, South Chungcheong Province. Police said he stayed up all night drinking with the new students.

In 2010, a freshman died because of excessive drinking at an orientation session in North Gyeongsang Province. The student fell asleep and did not wake up after a two-day-long drinking session, police said at the time.