Last March, Molly Ammon never made it home from her first college Spring Break.
The 19-year-old died from alcohol poisoning while vacationing with friends in Pinellas County.
This year, her family and friends are using Facebook to educate students about how to prevent a similar tragedy.
About 1,000 people have “liked” Molly Ammon Spring Break Awareness, a page that encourages students to be careful while partying.
The medical reporter for Tampa Bay’s Fox 13 news, Dr. Joette Giovinco, created the page after interviewing Molly’s mom, Angie Ammon.
“I think the important thing is to get the message out to kids [of] what to do when they’re with a friend who has had too much to drink,” Ammon said.
The Delta Delta Delta sorority sister had been stumbling after a day and night of drinking at the beach, so her friends laid her in bed to “sleep it off,” according to the page.
They checked on her, but in the morning, she wasn’t breathing. Toxicology reports recorded her blood-alcohol content at 0.40, according to the Fox story.
“If you’re too afraid to call a parent or you’re not in a place where you can, don’t put them to bed,” Ammon said. “Keep them awake.”
She has received messages from people all over saying they’ve read the page and shared it with their kids.
“The parent that you call might be really ticked off, but trust me, I would rather be a ticked off parent than a heartbroken mother,” Ammon said.
UF’s Tri-Delta chapter supports the page, said chapter President Laura Jane Powell.
“It’s really important for us to remember her going into Spring Break and remember the impact that she has on our chapter every single day,” she said. “It’s been so close to our hearts for the past year, and it will be for the rest of our lives.”
The Facebook page is just one way of getting the word out about staying safe while drinking, said Maureen Miller, GatorWell’s coordinator for alcohol and other drug prevention.
Signs of alcohol poisoning can include clammy or bluish skin, vomiting while passed out and an irregular breathing rate, she said.
“If someone is so passed out or unresponsive that you try to wake them up and you can’t, that’s really a big indication that you need to get them help right away,” Miller said.
This list of signs is not comprehensive, she said, and students should not make assumptions based on how an intoxicated person has handled the level of alcohol before.
The people Molly was with made a mistake, Ammon said.
That’s why the page is so important to her.
“If it saves one child and one family the heartache we’ve been though, I’m completely, completely in favor of it,” she said.
Contact Julia Glum at jglum@alligator.org.
Jolisa Canty also contributed to this report.
