WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Here’s a reality check for parents and teens: Every year, 4,000 people under the age of 21 die from alcohol-related causes, according to the CDC.
Students at Purdue University are hoping to change that and save lives.
The students are pushing to expand Indiana’s Lifeline Law and they’re working with state lawmakers to try to make that happen.
One of those students in Jason Packard, a senior at Purdue and president of student government. He used to be a resident advisor and said many students just don’t know how Indiana’s current Lifeline Law works.
“It’s difficult for students to understand and really be convinced on that idea to call 911 when they’re in an emergency,” Packard said.
Under the current law, students who call 911 for an underage friend who’s had too much to drink and is in crisis, are protected from prosecution.
Because students don’t know or understand the law, Packard said when he was an RA, he encountered many students who needed their friends to call 911 to get them help, but that didn’t happen.
"A student would dump a friend out of a car or leave them in in a bush, leave them in a stairwell," Packard recalled. "Or we'd find a panicked student who wouldn’t call 911 to try and save their friend’s life or get them the help they need to prevent a disastrous situation."
While the current law protects the person who calls 911 and those who stay at the scene to help, the law does not protect the underage student who is having the medical emergency.
“I have a lot of concern about the circumstances that are leading individuals to overconsume, and we need to address that, but we can’t address that when somebody’s in a casket,” said State Senator Spencer Deery, (R-District 23).
Deery is co-authoring legislation that would expand Indiana’s Lifeline Law to give protection to the underage person when their friend calls 911 to get them help if they’re sick from drinking too much.
"The first step is to step in in a medical emergency and then get them the help they need," he said.
"People just don’t want to get their friend in trouble,” said former Republican State Senator Jim Merritt, who authored the first Lifeline Law.
Merritt believes expanding the law to also give immunity to the underage person who is having a medical emergency from drinking too much will save lives.
“If somebody makes a mistake then everybody will have immunity, and they will have learned a lesson,” Merritt said.
Packard agrees and plans to tell Indiana lawmakers that if the proposed bill gets a hearing and he gets the chance to testify.
“We need to the full protection for both parties where people can call 911 and not have to question whether people are going to get cited or arrested,” he said.