Tap The Bottle And Eat The Cap

Leave it to the Australians to take a celebration to the next level. Screw pouring beer on heads. Try eating the bottle caps as well.

An amateur Aussie Rules football player was rushed to the hospital after swallowing a bottle cap during celebrations for a grand final win. He chugged a beer and swallowed the cap that was at the bottom.

He was rushed to the hospital where surgeons were able to remove the cap using an endoscope. His blood alcohol level was almost .11.

"This is the first one of these I've seen (personally), but we see stupid stuff all the time - it always involves young blokes, beer, girls and sport,'' [Royal Adelaide Hospital emergency department registrar Dr. Robert Douglas] said.

You think it would end there but it don't. As Mickey Rivers would say, "You think it don't be like it is but it do".

Dr. Douglas wrote an article in the British Medical Journal which uses this incident to illustrate that champagne and wine are safer than beer when celebrating or making it rain.

Excessive alcohol consumption as a celebratory consequence of high profile sporting victories is well known. Oesophageal obstruction from a bottle cap, however, is rarely seen in emergency departments.^{1 2} In suspected cases, airways obstruction and injury should be rapidly excluded. A comprehensive Medline search failed to elicit an example of oesophageal obstruction secondary to the ingestion of a champagne (or wine) cork. Since the 18th century, champagne has been the beverage of choice for celebrations³ and on current evidence should remain so.

If anything, this incident should be looked at as a challenge to the next Aussie Rules champions. Let's see you down a bottle cap, mate.

Since we referenced it and you know you want it...