<p>“Freshman roommate” rules aside, where does “compassionate caring” end, and enabling co-dependency begin? I too grew up with a lot of substance abusers, so maybe it’s MY issue, but still…If someone is responsible for rescuing, do they get to set some limits on the others behavior as well?</p>
<p>Good lord! If your D decides to look out for her RM every time the girl has a drink, I think her schedule will be a booked this year - especially with a level of .23!! Remeber, another friend offered to take the RM home. Staff at the ER won’t share info with parents - let alone RMs. I think D’s presence would have just added to the drama, pumpkin smashing notwithstanding.
As far as the comparisons to the ill RMs, well, I think that is comparing apples and oranges. On the other hand, like I said earlier, it will be blown over by this weekend.
“Self-centered brat” oh come on, now…</p>
<p>If the OP is asking this question, then there is a good chance her D is, too. People, especially young people, make mistakes. Sometimes it has nothing to do with the values they were raised with. What is done is done at this point - the question is whether or not the OP’s D (and the roommate, too - but that is another story) learned anything from this experience. She was not responsible for the roommate, but they were, from what I gather, good friends. I, personally, wouldn’t have left to go off to a party in that situation. IMO an apology to all involved would not be out of line.</p>
<p>Freshman roommate" rules aside, where does “compassionate caring” end, and enabling co-dependency begin? I too grew up with a lot of substance abusers, so maybe it’s MY issue, but still…If someone is responsible for rescuing, do they get to set some limits on the others behavior as well?</p>
<p>I don’t see making sure a friend has emergency care to be enabling, because that is a situation that is not grey- but black and white.
Enabling would be to dismiss it afterwards or pretend it didn’t happen.</p>
<p>It seems that it is really easy to be judgmental based on hindsight and second or third party reporting. Not being there when this occurred or knowing the girls, there is a lot of supposition. It sounds like the pre-party drinking is not a first time event. When the girl returned to the dorm WITH ANOTHER GIRL WHO AGREED TO ACCOMPANY HER no one knew what her blood alcohol level was or the severity of her problem. In my experience, many drunks are loud and belligerent without endangering themselves. By the time that the text message was received, and we don’t know how much information was given at that time, the girl was already on the way or at the hospital. Having a group of unrelated teens show up at the hospital would not have accomplished anything. I think the OP’s post sounds very defensive and uncaring but not knowing her, I would not try to judge how she is rearing her daughter. I think she is probably reacting to the harsh behavior of the kids toward her daughter.</p>
<p>At what point was it black and white that this roomate needed, but did not have emergency care? Again, I’m not sure about dorm roommate rules, but wouldn’t somebody have to watch someone quite closely for quite awhile to know that? Where is the line? If you are responsible for watching them, do you have the “right” to tell them to stop? Just wondering how this works.</p>
<p>To the OP, I think I’d be worried about behavior at either end of the extreme.</p>
<p>I find that most college students are very flexible. If the OP’s daughter is “reacting to the harsh behavior of the kids toward her daughter” there might be a reason for the “harsh” treatment like…she might not be the most involved/charitable/empathetic/liked person in the dorm. As for the nonsense of “do no harm”. No one there was doing CPR or inserting a trach tube. They took her to the hospital. The worst “harm” would have been if there was nothing wrong. To use the do no harm as a defense is poppycock. It is however the reason to resurrect to use the Kitty Genovese incident and what societal and human obligations are to one another.</p>
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<p>No doubt the OP is reacting to what her D is reporting. Perhaps the OP is surprised that other dormmates are upset that she ignored the text. Many people, if they received a message that their roommate was in the hospital, regardless of the reason, would have gone to the hospital out of concern or compassion or whatever even if they were “upset” with the circumstances, circumstance conversations get tabled until after the crisis. The OPs daughter “thought” that the roommate went home to be tucked into bed by someone else, the text message was to tell her that her roommate was in ER. She made a decision to stay and party. This dormmates are no doubt critical of this decision not that the dormmates thought the roommate was “in danger.” And as far as “unrelated teens” showing up at ER, that’s exactly what typically happens. When S1 was a freshman one of his roommate wracked his leg up skiing one afternoon and all the roommates dropped everything and “swarmed” the ER. There was nothing my son and others could do, it was just a reaction to a roommate in trouble and no doubt the conversations like “what an idiot why did you try that jump?” get left to when the crisis has passed. Matters not if the iincident was ‘self induced alcohol’ or self induced reckless skiing or a car accident or food poisoning… that is not the issue or the point of the dormmates anger.</p>
<p>There was no legal obligation to call the Police:</p>
<p>[Police:</a> People Watched Gang Rape Of Teen And Did Nothing To Help](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Police: People Watched Gang Rape Of Teen And Did Nothing To Help | HuffPost Latest News)</p>
<p>In the above: the question is legal versus moral obligation.</p>
<p>^^Just as it was when the DD received a text message stating that her roommate, already known to be ill, was taken to the hospital by ambulance with a potentially life-threatening condition.</p>
<p>Saying that " it is legal", reminds me of a 10 yr old who is told not to eat his Halloween candy before dinner, so he eats his sisters & is " surprised" when his father scolds him, because " he didn’t say he couldn’t".</p>
<p>He of course knows better- and I would argue that those who observe a criminal act are accomplices, because they by doing nothing are giving their approval by remaining silent.</p>
<p>[Accomplice liability is applicable to someone who aides and abets a crime, says Kara Dansky, executive director at the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. If a bystander verbally encouraged a crime, they can face the same level of punishment as those who actually carry it out, she says.](<a href=“Homecoming rape: When do bystanders become accomplices? - CSMonitor.com”>http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1030/p02s10-usju.html</a>)</p>
<p>It is interesting to think of all of this in terms of freshman roommates/suitemates, who just met each other two months ago, none of whom chose each other. But they’re supposed to take care of each other and have tremendous loyalty, even if they may not like each other, even if one is making stupid choices. I’m glad my horrible freshman roommate didn’t drink herself into the hospital…I’d have had a hard time spending cab fare to take care of her.</p>
<p>Personally, if I was living in the same room as someone(good friend or not) and found out that they had been rushed to the hospital, I don’t care how much fun the party was…I just couldn’t enjoy myself and would feel COMPELLED to leave and help in some way. I don’t know if that is a moral response or just the way that I am wired. Heck, Ive taken total strangers to the emergency twice --once when I was first at the scene of an accident while camping and another time when I saw an elderly women in distress in front of my house(broken wrist). I would never give these actions a second thought, (liability be damned) nor would I describe these actions as exceptional. Like I told an ex friend who once questioned my motives: “It’s a human being thing, you wouldn’t understand”</p>
<p>Musica, have you ever lived in the same room with someone you can’t stand who can’t stand you? If you couple that with something like drinking herself sick (as opposed to an accident) and it’s hard to have a lot of sympathy past knowing the person is getting medical attention.</p>
<p>Yes…virtually ALL my dorm room mates were aboslutely miserable nut cases. The stories I could tell…I would still not be able to party while they were in the emergency. I am an inveterate worrier. I wouldnt even call it compassion, it runs deeper than that. Thats why I used the words “personally”. And when someone is sick, whether self inflicted illness or not, and it is bad enough that they need hospitalization, I tend to leave my judgement at the waiting room door. (hey—I lived thru the seventies and eighties in Hollywood and oooh boy,taking people in for emergency room visits due to drug overdoses were par for the course)</p>
<p>I’ve tried to word something here a number of times and keep deleting so bear with me on this thought.</p>
<p>I know OP’s daughter told her mom that she didn’t drink that evening, but perhaps she MEANT that she didn’t have much to drink. She might have been hesitant to “tell all” to Mom - a natural reaction - considering that she was just recovering from the flu and on medication. Could a slightly impaired decision-making ability have played a part in the great time she was having and aided and abetted the decision to ignore RM? IMO this situation almost makes more sense that just going on without a care. Unless, of course, the roommates have other issues, and this particular episode exposed the problems in an unfortunately public way.</p>
<p>Regardless, an unfortunate situation for everyone involved. I doubt the other kids hold the RM blameless and just feel sorry for her; they probably feel that she learned a lesson without them needing to rub her nose in it. (OP did say she was embarrassed.)</p>
<p>There are some things we don’t know about the situation. If someone else offered to take the roommate back to the dorm - was that person only offering because the OP’s D did not? Was there really such a hindsight is 20:20 aspect to this, or was it pretty clear to everyone involved that the girl needed close attention? Maybe these kids were ticked off from the very beginning of the evening and things only deteriorated as the situation worsened. </p>
<p>Also related to this - was there a sense that the OP’s D was the closest one to this girl? I do not get the idea that the girls weren’t very friendly with one another . The OP did not imply the girls weren’t friends - she mentions that they “party” together. To us, as parents, a ten week old relationship is brand new - but it can feel like an eternity of knowing one another to many college freshmen. </p>
<p>Even if the D thinks there is an element of hindsight is 20:20 to the anger of the friends, I think it could still pay dividends to own up and apologize for misjudging/ mishandling her end of the situation. In return, the friends may even apologize for coming down as hard as they did on her. Hopefully, they ALL learned a big lesson here.</p>
<p>I told my D that taking care of a drunk is not in her job description and these girls were angry because they got stuck caring for this girl. The roommate came back home via taxi from the hospital at around 5am. So where does D responsibility to a girl she’s know for 10 weeks begin and end??</p>
<p>I think your daughter behaved in a way that reflects your philosophy. You don’t see it as her responsibility and neither did she. As you can see from the posts, even the adults don’t agree on this matter. I like the “no girl left behind” philosophy of Poetgrl’s daughters and I would hope that even if my DD weren’t best buddies with a roommate she would stay with her if she were so drunk. On the other hand, if this were a common situation, I would also hope she would report her to the Freshman Counselor, or someone in authority to let them know this girl was in serious trouble.</p>
<p>You know, I’m starting to wonder how responsible the hospital was in discharging the young woman 4 hours (tops) after being admitted with blood alcohol level of .23…
Like I said earlier, there will be a new drama this weekend…</p>