"Your friend was admitted to the intensive care unit a little while ago. That is all the information that I can give you at the moment."

I think the hospital won't tell me anything because they are trying to notify his next of kin of his demise. For the next 15 minutes, I am imagining the rest of my life with the unfathomable weight of such guilt on my head.

Scared, I call the hospital back and tell them my fears. Luckily, a different woman answers the phone and tells me that my friend should be OK, but that he is extremely lucky to be alive. So goes my final bar tour at Penn State.

This was the last of my close friends to turn 21, and the whole ritual of the bar tour had lost much of its appeal. Seeing friends buy putrid shots for a friend to test his or her ability to do 21 shots in a night was starting to scare me. However, seeing a close friend carted off in an ambulance and thinking of the worst possible outcomes has made me wish that no other students feel the need to attempt this absurd tradition.

This particular night I had two friends sharing 21st birthdays. One was taking the option of casual drinking, while the other planned on drinking as many shots as possible.

The shots began to pile up quickly that evening. By the time we were at the third bar, he had downed 13 shots in about an hour. The third bar provided an opportunity for unobstructed shots to be bought. Within an hour and 20 minutes of being 21, my friend had consumed 23 shots of alcohol. Although he showed no visible signs of being drunk, we knew he had to leave, so two of my friends took him home.

I stayed and bought a beer for my other friend with a birthday. After witnessing yet another stressful bar tour, it was comforting to actually enjoy a social drink with someone on his 21st birthday. We talked of him finally being able to go to the bars with everyone. He was happy. Little did I know that my other friend was close to dying.

As we walked back to my fraternity house, an ambulance sped past. I became worried instantly. When I walked into my house, there were about 15 people with scared looks on their faces. Apparently, my friend came back from the bars and attempted to pass out. Everyone told him that he could not go to sleep with that much alcohol in his system. They tried to make him vomit, repeatedly sticking their fingers down his throat, attempting to purge him of some of the alcohol. After that was unsuccessful, someone called an ambulance.

When I arrived home, I heard this story and had someone drive me to the hospital. Eight other friends were in the emergency room waiting room, all as afraid as I. At around 3 a.m., a receptionist told us it would be easier to leave and call in the morning. My night of hell ended with that 7 a.m. phone call of reassurance, and seemingly this whole ordeal could be put behind everyone. Hopefully, everyone had learned a lesson of moderation.

It may be helpful now to state that I never intended to write this column. My friend had been through enough and certainly didn't need the night to be rehashed. However, the lead story on the local news that Thursday night showed my house and reported that an unidentified person consumed more than 20 shots of liquor at my house. Besides being a completely unnecessary story, it was also completely false. The only part that my fraternity played in the matter was being the place that the ambulance was called from. Not one drink was consumed in the house. However, these details were not only ignored, they were completely contradicted by the irresponsible reporting.

Wondering why such a story would even be included in the news, one would only have to watch the rest of the report. After the initial "facts" of the previous night, the reporter then interviewed local students about binge drinking in college. The whole report was a thinly veiled attempt by the local media to continue to report of the evils of college drinking and of fraternities in particular. Certainly, the TV station did not think through the repercussions of airing this story. How many fraternity members would now call an ambulance in this situation, if they know that they would be plastered on the local news as demons of the earth?

Though students have been drinking to oblivion at this campus for years, recently, the media have felt the need to latch on to the cause and exploit individuals.

To have one of my life's scariest moments trivialized into an erroneous sound bite angers me to no end. I know of my mistake that night. I hope that the local news realizes theirs.

Moreover, I pray that other students can learn to use restraint on theirs or anyone's 21st birthday.