Smoky bar triggered fatal asthma attack

A woman in her late teens died from an acute asthma attack triggered by secondhand cigarette smoke shortly after arriving at her job as a waitress in a bar in Michigan, researchers reported on Friday.

They said it was the first reported case of an immediate death caused by secondhand smoke.

“She didn’t have any other possible known causes of death,” said Dr. Kenneth Rosenman, a Michigan State University professor who oversees three state public health surveillance systems.

Much more at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23075001/

Yes, there was a contributing factor in that the victim was noncompliant in taking medication to prevent attacks.

However, trying to breathe around a smoker is just like trying to breathe underwater if you're an asthmatic. I'm surprised it hasn't happened before now, and this is why smoking needs to be banned in indoor public places.

Set fire to those things outdoors, we'll get along just fine.

the last place i would work is a bar.

is notoriously limited, especially for women, and barmaids make good tips. That means more hours to study. I'm sure that's why she took that job.

aren't worth death!

and she'd be alive.

Smoking bans WORK. It's wonderful in my town. Business is UP as people who had a hard time tolerating all those clouds of cigarette smoke in clubs are coming out and having a social life for the first time in their lives.

Here in TN we have a ban in all restaurants, unless it is strictly a 21 and over establishment.

A bunch of folks got mad when their favorite sports bars went strictly 21 and up and they couldn't take the kids on game night any more.

would be to designate the place a private club and charge monthly membership fees. As I understand it, if one isn't open to the general public, one isn't subject to the antismoking ordinances, even though they're based on providing a safe working environment.

You'd be limiting your customer base and I sincerely doubt it would be enough to keep you in business, but there's your choice.

If I want to spend $250,000 to open up a bar or restaurant that specifically caters to smokers, why should I not be able to?

Keep in mind which state this happened in--the one with the worst economy in the country. It was probably the only job she could find.

That comes with a very, very heavy :sarcasm:

This is horrible.

I have a severe aversion to heights. I have no doubt that I would get vertigo and plunge to my death should I find myself working on a bare girder 30 stories up.

Many people suffer from claustrophobia. They probably shouldn't be coal miners.

Epileptics and carnival work probably don't mix well either.


The tragic death of an athsmatic who KNEW she was supposed to be taking meds and was noncompliant and KNEW she was going to be working around smoke is not a valid argument to support a ban of indoor smoking.

My son is 17. He has athsma. He knows not to be around any of the things that could cause an attack without his inhaler.

This woman was even aware that she was supposed to be taking meds and chose not to.

n/t

however, can we discuss the personal responsibility aspect? Please note, I'm not going after you here - just the conclusions that are being drawn. I'm not a smoker (though I once was) and prefer to eat in smoke free restaurants (taste factor) . . . but I think we're divorcing reason from this particular argument a LOT lately.

As you pointed out, the young lady was non-compliant in her own treatment - I'm sure it's tough having to take meds every day, etc, but you have to play the hand you're dealt.

She was young - but not so young as to be given a pass on critical thinking skills, so suggesting that her age was excuse for her noncompliance doesn't really wash.

She took a job in a bar. I assume that Michigan still allows smoking in bars (they've banned it where I live, except in the casinos). So, she knew she was taking a job where she would be exposed to second-hand smoke. Okay, maybe there wasn't another job in the entire town - but then we're back to the noncompliance aspect. Are we to assume that she simply didn't realise that smoke could trigger an attack?

There are a lot of questions that I'd like to see answered before I LEAP to the conclusion that smoking should be banned in indoor public places.

whenever the "right" to inflict smoking on others is the topic.

What kind of simile is that? Asthmatic or not, you ain't gonna breathe without air.

. . . . .

Rosenman said the woman had asthma since age 2. Her asthma was poorly controlled. She had made four visits to her doctor in the year before her death for flare-ups, and had been treated in a hospital emergency department two to three times that year.

Although she had prescriptions for an assortment of drugs to prevent and treat asthma attacks, she was reported to only use them when she was having breathing difficulty.

On the evening of her death, she had no inhaler with her. When she became sick, she told the bar manager she needed to go to the hospital, then collapsed on the dance floor



not to discount this young woman's death, but, it was clear she had MAJOR health issues--and didn't have her inhaler with her.


by the way, how many states actually still allow smoking in bars?

and, again, don't you have to be 21 to work in a bar?

nonsmoker, who has believed for decades that this whole anti-amoking thing is completely out of hand.

...in a Thai restaurant.

Sorry I have a major problem with people who WILL NOT look after themselves; deliberately place themselves in situations that are uniquely dangerous to them personally; insist that the world rearrange itself to suit them; and demand compensation when their own actions or inactions come back to bite them on the arse.

My reaction to this is that we must continue to segregate smokers for the safety an welfare of the public, just as we segregate automobiles from playgrounds.

But we can't excuse people who refuse to take responsibility for their own welfare. If you wander into traffic, you can't just blame the cars.

As sad as this is, the victim must bear much of the responsibility for her death.

...he had no other possible known cause of death.It was the first reported case of an immediate death caused by fire-breathers. See the amazing things you learn in the land of "scientific surmises"? While the story above and the news story may both be proven true neither is in fact based on a shred of evidence.In Dad's case he suffered a heart arrythmia and died and was buried without an autopsy and any other triggering evidence was lost.In the "news" item they quote a guy who throws out all other possible triggers and declares they've got their culprit.Any asthma sufferers here want to tell me that cigarette smoke is their only trigger???Think a bar might also hold others??? Think:perfume,soaps,colognes, and oh yeah,might there not be SOME different smoke in a restaurant kitchen??? In short, a tragedy of unknown cause perverted without proof to support an anti-smoking agenda...shorter still, bullshit.

I know we do here. It really is a matter of public health--like restaurant inspection, etc.

Anyway, this is terribly sad.

She knew she was asthmatic. She had been to an ER on at least two occasions in the past year. Visited her doctor on multiple occasions. Was not following her medication regimen. AND failed to take her reliever into an environment rife with potential triggers entirely apart from tobacco smoke.

I'm inclined to be entirely uncharitable and suggest that she was doing her damnedest to set herself up for life with a nice lucrative lawsuit. Particularly if this bar is one where smoking is supposed to be banned and the patrons and management are refusing to comply.

At the very least she is an idiot who does not deserve one jot of sympathy. I'll save what I have for those who remain behind to deal with the grief her stupidity inspired.

It isn't sad when people die from mistakes that they made? Okaaaaaaaaay.

And still a teenager?

I am sure you were full of wisdom at that age.

:sarcasm:

...time and time again.

AS for calling her a teenager, that is a sophistry I commonly see in purveyors of porn capitalising on the all too common desire for "forbidden fruit" and the media attempting to pass idiots such as this one off as adolescents/children so they can take a cheap ratings inflating shots at cops/bars/whatever.

She was an ADULT with all the rights and responsibilities pertaining thereunto.

In at least six consults with medical professionals in the past year, plus who knows how many times in the sixteen years prior to that since her conditions manifested/was diagnosed, she would have been told that she was risking her life when/if she failed follow the proper management regimes.


Was I full of wisdom at that age? Not particularly. But nor did I repeat those mistakes I did make, time and time again.


Tell me are you full of sympathy for hoons who manage to kill themselves or others whilst figuratively waving their tockleys?

It's in the state constitution.

We tried. We passed a referendum making smoking inside a restaurant or bar illegal. It went to the state supreme court, and they struck it down as unconstitutional. The state cannot regulate private businesses when it comes to smoking. There have been efforts to change the constitution, but they've gone nowhere. Instead, our governor raised the state cigarette tax to help balance the budget, but people are still smoking.

I have asthma, and it's not controlled. We're still trying to figure out what to do, but I can't take prednisone to get it under control quickly. That leaves me with four drugs (two of which are inhalers) to take every day, and they still don't work that great.

Even if she'd had her inhaler, the only thing that would've helped would've been to leave when she first started having difficulty breathing. Since things can escalate fast, that's your best bet.

Oh, and in Michigan, you take any job you can get. Please don't look down on her for taking that job, knowing her health problem. Jobs are scarce enough here that people are taking all sorts of jobs that their doctors wish they wouldn't, just to have money coming in. They don't really have a choice.

she had a signficant burden of responsiblity here. The job market is difficult in many places but really, there are always alternatives. She was not enslaved, no one forced her to take that job or go into that environment. Did she go out to bars and clubs before this? Do we blame the bakery when a diabetic eats cake and then goes into a coma?

I don't like smoke, it is very unhealthy. At the same time I don't think it is right to cast smokers into second class citizens. Especially when we are gouging them with taxes they have to pay in order to feed their addiction to nicotine in order to pay for our services because it certainly isn't going to help them. We happily exploit their addiction and look down on them for it? If the government truly was against tobacco (and don't forget, the country was partly built on the tobacco industry--many of our founder were tobacco farmers), they would outlaw it and refuse to take money from it.

The taxes are so high on tobacco in my state that it get smuggled in like alcohol from the prohibition days-- and how did that work out?

The taxes on tobacco would be just the ones to cover the extra medical costs the states pay out due to smoking. I sure don't think it should be used as some sort of revenue source for other state expenses. I completely agree with you there--we should not exploit addiction. I feel the same way about alcohol taxes.

However, your statement "If the government truly was against tobacco, they would outlaw it"--well, I would hope not. If high taxes on it are bad, then banning it would be worse.

But the case for banning smoking in public places is really, really compelling. We would all get upset if a chemical factory, for instance, had a high illness rate because of the chemicals that are breathed in by the workers. We don't say, "Well, they should have known better. Nobody forced them to work there." Honestly, that just doesn't cut it. Because smoke in the workplace is a known health hazard. The extent of the hazard may not have been known until the last decade, but, this case aside, and whether or not she should have taken a job there, second hand smoke causes a broad range of people health problems-- and these are people with no pre-existing conditions. And it sure isn't just asthma.

People would have no objections to smokers and/or smoking if they weren't compelled to breathe the stuff.

I think --Nashville? My mother was telling me that you can't chew tobacco either. I don't advocate a ban on smoking but I think the govt are hypocrites in regard to the smoking bans outside esp. with their carbon offsets. Also, no one has explained the rise in lung cancer rates in the face of dramatically fewer smokers and less exposure to secondhand smoke. I remember when people smoked EVERYWHERE (grocery stores, hospital rooms, shopping malls, schools, etc.).

I don't think you have a good argument that second hand smoke doesn't cause a lot of health problems, because it does. If lung cancer is increasing while at the same time smoking is decreasing, then there are probably other causes in addition to cigarette smoke. Plus I think a lot of the damage of cigarette smoke isn't nicotine, is it? I think I remember that there are so many pesticides put on the tobacco plants that it creates a lot of other harmful chemical compounds. It is possible that those are increasing even while overall exposure to smoke is decreasing.

As for chewing tobacco, that isn't a public health risk, unless people spit on the floor I guess. So I don't see any reason for a government ban of that from the workplace. Of course, individual companies can set their own standards, and I doubt if you will find people chewing tobacco at the nearest bank branch.

but I think villainizing (is that a word?) smokers as the cause of most lung cancers in non-smokers is wrong. I think they need to look at other exposures to noxious chemicals such as those used in agriculture, manufacturing and the stuff they spray on clothing to make sure it doesn't get moldy or infested as it ships from overseas.

I ask this because at the same time, homes have trended larger, much larger than homes built even 20 years ago.

I was just reading this thread and I thought I would drop in one fact that I did know.

You can't have too many facts.