One Friday night after a long week, a couple of friends who live in the next apartment complex threw a party. After getting all dolled up (and taking a few roomie shots), two of my roommates and I headed over with numerous handles of vodka, while the other two headed to a different shindig. Upon our arrival, my boyfriend met us there and all of us decided this was a night to get really, really drunk.

We started taking shots immediately as music blasted and the party got more and more crowded.  It was a small apartment with tons of people inside, making it hard to move around, so logically we just stayed put in the corner we were in… and continued to take shots…for a few hours. We eventually stumbled to another party where my boyfriend and I got separated from our friends and, feeling frisky, decided to just make our way back to my place for a little lovin’.

Things were goin’ well in the bedroom. And by well, I mean crazy. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve got a little too much booze running through your system. We were in the middle of a particularly acrobatic situation when my boyfriend, who I must have been relying on to hold me up, suddenly fell off the bed. Naturally, I went down with him, slamming my head on my dresser along the way. I hit the floor as a searing pain shot through my head and my ear felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t move. I layed there in the fetal position moaning as my boyfriend freaked out.

“Oh my god. Oh my god! Are you OK?” He reached over and felt the side of my. “YOU’RE BLEEDING!”

I freaked out. My boyfriend pulled me up and we ran to the bathroom where I saw it. Blood. Everywhere: dripping down my neck, into my cleavage, all over his hands, streaked across his face.  We both sprinted upstairs (in our undies) to find someone to help us. We ran into my first roommate’s room and found her passed out next to her bed in her party clothes and shoes. Clearly she wouldn’t be much help. We shut the door and ran down the hall where, thankfully, my other three were awake. They all screamed when they saw me.

“Oh my god! What happened?!”

There was no time to explain so I grabbed a tank top from the floor, threw it on and followed my roommate (who deemed herself “sober enough” to drive to the campus Emergency Room) outside.

After getting yelled at for saying “sh*t” by a 250-pound attendant with a  “Gangsta Bitch” tattoo on her arm, I met with the receptionist who asked for my insurance card. In my drunken stupor (or maybe it was all that blood loss?) I handed her (in this order) my ID, my school ID, a Visa card, my Starbucks card and, finally, the insurance information she had requested. Then I made my boyfriend go buy me chips from the vending machine as I held an ice pack to my head (What? You think the drunk munchies go away when you’re bleeding from the head?). Eventually, it was my turn.

I layed on the table and held my boyfriend’s hand as the doctor, in a very thick foreign accent, informed me that my ear was basically split in half and I’d need 6 stitches. I mentally freaked out (I’d never had stitches before!), but was too drunk to do anything but lay there (in a tank top and a pair of plaid boy shorts that barely covered my ass, by the way) with my eyes closed and a stupid smile on my face. I barely felt a thing.

Finally, the night ended and my boyfriend and I went home.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
Unfortunately, having a bunch of black wires sticking out of your ear leaves people with a lot of questions. Especially my grandma, who, in addition to the rest of my family, I had to see when I went home for Thanksgiving only two days later.

I’ve seen a lot of drunken injuries in my day. Some are funny; some not so much. You really shouldn’t need to wear hard hats or protective armor to a party, so here’s a brief list of some potentially painful injuries, and how to avoid them.

Injury: Cigarette burns.

Avoid them by: Not drunkenly smoking your cigs all the way through the band; not giving someone with a lit cigarette your hand; not putting the wrong side of your lit cigarette into your mouth.

Injury: First, second, or third degree burns.

Avoid them by: Being conscious of where the bonfire pit is at a keg party on a cool autumn night; not attempting to walk through said pit in an effort to reunite with your friends after peeing in the woods.

Injury: Stitches on your scalp.

Avoid them by: Not jumping up and down on your lofted bed and cracking your head open on the ceiling; not falling out of a lofted bed after sloppy, drunken, sex, and cracking your head open on your f*ck buddy’s desk.

Injury: A shiner the color of an eggplant.

Avoid it by: Not chugging straight Bacardi and proceeding to faceplant your nightstand. These actions may or may not also have a negative effect on the nightstand, which may or may not break apart from the impact of your face.

Injury: Swollen, bruised kneecaps.

Avoid them by: Not attempting to do “the worm,” despite your complete lack of dance ability. Especially on concrete surfaces.

Injury: A cut-up upper lip.

Avoid it by: Not drinking from your beer bottle after all of your friends slammed their beer bottles on yours in an attempt to make the beer foam up and overflow; you never know if they chipped the bottle.

Injury: Sore [insert body part here]

Avoid them by: Not trying impossibly tricky, kinky new things while having sloppy, drunken sex. Sloppy, drunken sex can also sometimes lead to accidental penetration in places that no man has gone before.

Injury: Dislocated knee.

Avoid it by: Not dropping it like its hot with your guy friends at the bar when you already have a history of bad knees that dislocate easily.

Injury: A bruised ego and a crippled reputation.

Avoid it by: Knowing your limits and partying wisely. Once you’ve sobered up, all of the above are pretty embarrassing to have to explain to inquiring minds, and you don’t want people to think that you are the victim of domestic violence.

On a serious note, folks, alcohol-related accidents happen all the time on college campuses across the country. The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and the Harvard College Alcohol survey reported that between 1998-2001, alcohol-related unintentional injury deaths increased about 6% among the college population, and during that period, over 500,000 students were unintentionally injured because of drinking, with over 600,000 students admitting to being hit or assaulted by another drunk student.

It’s all good to look back at last nights’ antics and laugh it off, but when weekend craziness goes too far, it can have extreme consequences. So keep yourself and your friends safe, designate a DD, and if you’re accident prone before you even crack your first beer, it may be in your best interest to invest in some protective gear.