MT - 11 year old boys drink themselves to death

RONAN, Mont. – When two 11-year-old boys did not show up for afternoon classes at their middle school last Friday, no one was alarmed – they were probably just playing hooky.

But when their frozen bodies were found in a snowy field Monday – dead from drinking massive amounts of liquor – it set off an anguished search for whoever or whatever was responsible.

"If two kids are intoxicated to the point that they lay down on the prairie and die, there's some negligence there," Lake County Sheriff Bill Barron said Wednesday. "Somebody has got to be responsible for these two kids just laying down and dying. If it's the system, we're going to have to work on the system."

Frankie Sonneah Nicolai III and Justin Benoist apparently skipped school Friday afternoon, got their hands on a large quantity of liquor and ran off to drink it.

A friend who went searching for them Monday found their bodies about 100 yards apart in a field outside Ronan, on the Flathead Indian Reservation of northwestern Montana. Barron said they apparently died late Friday night or early Saturday.

Story from signsonsandiego.com

That's terrible. I have an eleven year old boy and I know he would not drink alcohol at this age. He still thinks its poison. I guess that will change in a few years!

So wasn't anyone searching all weekend? Why not?

No need to be alarmed, they are only playing hooky...well, MY parents cared if I was playing hooky.

Ghostwheel said:

So wasn't anyone searching all weekend? Why not?

No need to be alarmed, they are only playing hooky...well, MY parents cared if I was playing hooky.

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From http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20040304-0704-boys-liquordeaths.html Barron said he also was alarmed that his office had not been notified all weekend that the boys were missing. Parents of both boys, however, did notify tribal police on Friday that the two had run away, and tribal police listed them as runaways on the national law enforcement computer system, said Lt. Les Clairmont. Tribal police normally notify the sheriff's office as well, but Clairmont did not know whether that had occurred this time.

I did read that, but it still doesn't answer the question of why wasn't anyone looking for them all weekend.

Great family that just assumes the boys ran away....

They DID run away.

They ran away and drank themselves to death with good old legal alcohol... probably because they liked the taste.

It's a good thing they didn't get ahold of any evil amphetamines. :banghead:

Alot of kids think that alcohol makes you drunk. They don't even know that they can die from systemic poisoning.

It should be noted that on most reservations posession of ANY amount of alcohol is illegal.

Ghostwheel said:

I did read that, but it still doesn't answer the question of why wasn't anyone looking for them all weekend.

Great family that just assumes the boys ran away....

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I took it to mean that it was a friend who happened to find them while looking on Monday, not necessarily that this friend ONLY started looking on Monday or that no one else had been looking - of course could be wrong???

Toth...........are you a paramediic who know's all the lingo/ Certainly you're not a physician.......
xxxxxxxxo
mama

Love_Mama said:

Toth...........are you a paramediic who know's all the lingo/ Certainly you're not a physician.......
xxxxxxxxo
mama

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toth is neither and has no medical or scientific training or experience at all.

Toth said:

Alot of kids think that alcohol makes you drunk. They don't even know that they can die from systemic poisoning.

It should be noted that on most reservations posession of ANY amount of alcohol is illegal.

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Yet the American Indian has one of the highest rates of alcoholism and a genetic predisposition for low tolerance to alcohol. So I am sure it was not overly difficult for these children to put their hands on liquor.