Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
HOLDINGFORD, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Health has determined that an assisted living facility “neglected” a resident by serving him eighteen shots of liquor and a beer in the twenty-four hours before a scheduled telehealth appointment. However, it turns out that Covered Bridge Assisted Living had a written alcohol plan for resident Don Brambrink: two shots per hour – to help drown out the voices he’s been hearing in his head for the past forty years.
Don’t forget your medicine, Grandpa. Let me know if you need a beer to wash it down. (Garry Davies/Flickr)
The facility kept detailed records on how much alcohol it gave to Brambrink that day: Two shots at 6:54 p.m. Two at 8. Two at 9:20. Then a gap of six and a half hours, the closest thing to abstinence anywhere in the record, before two more at 3:55 a.m. A beer at 5. Two shots at 5:55. Two at 8:15, 9:15, 10:55, and 12:30 p.m. Somewhere in there he went fishing. The report also states that Brambrink is an amputee and wheelchair-bound, which makes his fishing expedition all the more impressive in retrospect. It does not record whether or not he caught any fish.
Staff found him on the floor, out cold. Nursing director Holly Rudh described him as “dead to the world.” He was taken to the emergency room and blew a 0.23, roughly three times the limit for operating a vehicle but roughly the perfect BAC for fishing. The doctor recommended he stay overnight to be watched for alcohol withdrawal. Brambrink declined, saying he would rather “go home and continue to drink,” which is definitely one way of staving off alcohol withdrawal.
Owner Trista Barstow defends her program. Covered Bridge takes residents other facilities refuse, such as people whose drinking has made them unhousable. The theory is that two shots an hour under supervision is better than having senior citizens hearing voices in their heads for forty years or passing out behind random dumpsters. “Monitoring them and trying to help them space these things out is actually a step-up,” Barstow said.
Brambrink appears to be fishing for a DUI. ( OrvisNews.com/Flickr)
“To a normal person, it does sound insane,” Rudh added, summing things up nicely.
Minnesota law lets a facility restrict a resident’s alcohol when safety requires it. Officials argue there is a difference between honoring a man’s right to make his own bad decisions and setting an alarm to make sure he achieves his bad decisions goals at four in the morning.
Brambrink himself disagrees with the state as well. “I haven’t been neglected,” he said. “They’re actually taking care of me.” They certainly did.
Covered Bridge plans to appeal, which means a hearing officer will eventually have to rule on whether or not a documented schedule of 18 drinks in 24 hours constitutes care. If their appeal is successful, I will be retiring in Minnesota.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
