# Teen loses stomach after drinking liquid nitrogen cocktail **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 9, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232 "2012-10-09T17:10:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/1 "2012-10-09T17:10:43Z")
[http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/teen-has-stomach-removed-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/story-fnd134gw-1226491688124](http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/teen-has-stomach-removed-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/story-fnd134gw-1226491688124) (if link doesn’t work, search for “gaby scanlon”) Can’t they fix a perforated stomach? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/2 "2012-10-09T17:14:32Z")
Non-mobile [url.](http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/teen-has-stomach-removed-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/story-fnd134gw-1226491688124) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/3 "2012-10-09T17:22:33Z")
Might have been bad enough that there was no time to try to patch multiple tears in the stomach. She won’t have trouble maintaining her figure after this. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/4 "2012-10-09T17:29:26Z")
According to [this](http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/girl-has-stomach-removed-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail-1-5002948): [QUOTE=Lancaster Guardian] “The premises involved have fully cooperated with all agencies and have suspended drinks involving liquid nitrogen.” [/QUOTE] Is this a new drink fad of which I’d been uninformed previously? I’d assumed “science class mishap” or at most “drink-spiking asshole”, not “yeah, we totally do that, but we’ll stop now”. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/5 "2012-10-09T17:34:10Z")
[This story](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9594000/Warning-over-liquid-nitrogen-drinks-after-girl-loses-stomach.html) says that it was a ‘correctly prepared’ cocktail. I pictured the girl gulping down a shot of liquid nitrogen, but there’s something else going here. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/6 "2012-10-09T17:35:39Z")
Strange artice for a Heinz “Bust Out The Beanz” ad to appear in. ---
**Author:** ![Vita\_Beata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@Vita\_Beata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vita_Beata)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/7 "2012-10-09T17:36:17Z")
Quote from the article: Oscar’s wine bar, sent their “heartfelt best wishes” to Ms Scanlon and her family “at this distressing time”. The Daily Mail reported that Oscar’s had recently promoted a cocktail called the “Pornstar Martini”, containing liquid nitrogen and champagne, for nine pounds ($14). End quote. ‘Heartfelt best wishes’ just sounds a tad too chirpy for this situation. Lawsuit coming! ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/8 "2012-10-09T17:36:35Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > [http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/teen-has-stomach-removed-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/story-fnd134gw-1226491688124](http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/teen-has-stomach-removed-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/story-fnd134gw-1226491688124) (if link doesn’t work, search for “gaby scanlon”) > > Can’t they fix a perforated stomach? What they did with mine was to take it out of the plumbing loop. My surgeon said he did a modified Roux En Y. As I understand it, the Roux En Y normally leaves a pouch, but with mine the esophagus goes straight into the small intestine. (Great fun when I get an upper GI and the tech isn’t expecting it.) Still, the stomach is in there somewhere - the surgeon said it still provides some important chemicals - for instance gastric protease and intrinsic factor both aid in the absorption of B12. (I still need B12 supplements.) A perforated stomach is a horribly painful thing, I was begging god to take me home. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/9 "2012-10-10T00:57:59Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > According to [this](http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/girl-has-stomach-removed-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail-1-5002948): > > Is this a new drink fad of which I’d been uninformed previously? I’d assumed “science class mishap” or at most “drink-spiking asshole”, not “yeah, we totally do that, but we’ll stop now”. Also, you’re meant to drink the liquid nitrogen before it boils away? For flaming cocktails I thought you’d extinguish them before drinking. It doesn’t seem smart to drink something that will expand 900 times. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/10 "2012-10-10T01:14:04Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > Also, you’re meant to drink the liquid nitrogen before it boils away? For flaming cocktails I thought you’d extinguish them before drinking. It doesn’t seem smart to drink something that will expand 900 times. That appears to be the problem. You shouldn’t ingest it while it’s still in liguid form. I could see a bubble of ice forming that holds some liguid nitrogen still in it. I’m not really seeing the point of doing this at all anyway. Why don’t people just drink vodka the way the universe intended? ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/11 "2012-10-10T01:28:32Z")
I imagine it looks pretty spectacular as the liquid nitrogen boils off and condenses all the water vapour. Just the kind of drink you’d buy a mate on their birthday in fact… ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/12 "2012-10-10T01:34:54Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > [This story](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9594000/Warning-over-liquid-nitrogen-drinks-after-girl-loses-stomach.html) says that it was a ‘correctly prepared’ cocktail. > > I pictured the girl gulping down a shot of liquid nitrogen, but there’s something else going here. From a link within your link to the [Darwin Awards website](http://darwinawards.com/personal/personal2000-25.html): > [@](#): > > I had done it before, and I believed in the physics behind it. So I unhesitatingly poured myself a glass and took a shot. Simple. Swallow, blow smoke out my nose, impress everyone. > Within two seconds, I collapsed to the floor, unable to breathe or indeed do anything except feel intense pain. The ambulance arrived. The police arrived. The journey to the hospital. The attempt to explain to baffled ER staff how something like this could happen. Then I passed out. > I woke up the next morning connected to beeping machines. It turns out that, in accordance with popular belief, you really should not drink liquid nitrogen. > I subsequently learned a few things about liquid nitrogen. While you can safely hold it in your mouth and blow neat smoke patterns, you should never, ever swallow. The closed epiglottis prevents the gas from escaping, so expanding gas is forced into your body. And your esophagus naturally constricts around anything inside it, so even though there is a thin protective gas layer, the esophagus will manage to make contact with the liquid nitrogen. > I also learned that my memory was flawed. When I had done the trick six years ago, I put it into my mouth and didn’t swallow. Over time, that fine line between parlor trick and fatal accident must have blurred. > I was badly burned from epiglottis to stomach bottom. The gas expanded to fill my chest cavity, and the pressure collapsed a lung. After what I’m told was a grueling all-night surgery, they removed part of my stomach and ran my entire digestive system on a machine. I was on a breather for a day until my lung was restored. There are a few considerably uglier details which I will spare you. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/13 "2012-10-10T01:38:54Z")
How does one even drink a mixture of liquid nitrogen and alcohol/water? Pure [ethanol](http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ethanol-water-d_989.html) does have a pretty low freezing point (but it rises as concentration falls), but [liquid nitrogen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_nitrogen) is even colder. Never mind the effect on mouth and throat tissues before you even swallow it (if you’ve ever touched dry ice you’d know what I mean, and mouth tissue is no doubt more delicate); the [leidenfrost effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect) may provide some protection but not for long. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/14 "2012-10-10T02:11:10Z")
My WAG is on the drink forming an encasing ice bubble around some of the liquid nitrogen, which lasted until it got down into the stomach, then released the liquid nitrogen. My husband had something similar happen to him but, fortunately, it was “only” a small amount of dry ice rather than liquid nitrogen. We were at a Halloween party in college where the party hosts used small chunks of dry ice in their punch. My husband (boyfriend at the time) says that he swallowed a small piece of ice in his drink. Shortly thereafter he was heaving his guts out, and continued to dry heave through much of the night. He didn’t drink that much in terms of alcohol content, and shouldn’t have been that ill. Between that behavior and finding a small scar inside his stomach wall during an endoscopy a few years later (checking for an ulcer), we think he swallowed dry ice encased in regular ice made out of the beverage. The regular ice melted away when it got to the stomach and the dry ice rapidly turned into tons of CO2, which by expanding in his stomach made him vomit repeatedly and generally feel awful. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/15 "2012-10-10T03:13:12Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > According to [this](http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/girl-has-stomach-removed-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail-1-5002948): > > Is this a new drink fad of which I’d been uninformed previously? I’d assumed “science class mishap” or at most “drink-spiking asshole”, not “yeah, we totally do that, but we’ll stop now”. It’s a new foodie fad as well - or not so new, it’s been going on for over a decade. The way liquid nitrogen gets used in cooking shows, you’d think it’s some sort of Mahvelous Not Really Dahngewous thing; some of the cooks look more careful when handling the dry ice - dry ice rates baking gloves, liquid nitrogen doesn’t. They have the liquid nitrogen in an aluminum pot with a baquelite handle (with no mention of how come they’re using an aluminum pot rather than the fancy cookware which is one of their advertisers) with only a drop line at the end that “this has to be handled carefully, it could do to your hands what it just did to the food”. The pot has got something white on it, but people who didn’t know better have confused the white stuff for lime residue (whitescale) - the cook never mentions it’s ice. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/16 "2012-10-10T05:53:39Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > From a link within your link to the [Darwin Awards website](http://darwinawards.com/personal/personal2000-25.html): So basically drinking something 200 degrees below room temperature is about as dangerous as drinking something 200 degrees above. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/17 "2012-10-10T06:02:02Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > She won’t have trouble maintaining her figure after this. Oh great. Now we’ll be having people doing this to control their weight. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/18 "2012-10-10T06:03:25Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Oh great. Now we’ll be having people doing this to control their weight. They already do. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/19 "2012-10-10T09:22:23Z")
I knew a guy who used liquid nitrogen to make ice cream. Well, liquid nitrogen and liquor. It was pretty good, but I recall that it may have involved a lot of stirring, which presumably helped to break up any nitrogen ice bubbles. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232/20 "2012-10-10T11:53:30Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > I knew a guy who used liquid nitrogen to make ice cream. Well, liquid nitrogen and liquor. It was pretty good, but I recall that it may have involved a lot of stirring, which presumably helped to break up any nitrogen ice bubbles. It’s a common enough trick, it’s how Heston Blumenthal makes his scrambled egg and bacon ice cream. I’ve seen it done, but its advisable to wait long enough for the fog to clear, and all the LN2 to have boiled away. The fact that people are treating cryogenic gases with the kind of care that they treat normal ice doesn’t surprise me, people have been huffing helium without regard for the safety implications for a long time. I’m surprised that the HSE hasn’t come down on restaurants and bars that stock this stuff like a tonne of bricks considering the deaths due to an LN2 leak at a major medical research institute in 2000 ([link](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/798925.stm)). I seriously doubt this bar had oxygen level monitoring and warning systems in place and I very much doubt that the staff had training in what to do in the case of finding an unconscious colleague (hint: leave them and save yourself, unless you have SCBA at hand). When I worked with LN2 I had to receive training on how to handle and transport the stuff without killing or injuring people. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teen-loses-stomach-after-drinking-liquid-nitrogen-cocktail/637232.md?page=2)