The next time someone tries to convince you whiskey can't solve all your problems just show them this. When a New Zealand man recently went blind after drinking too much vodka while on diabetes medication, doctors cured him the best way they knew: Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey.
The brave patient, 65-year-old Denis Duthie, was reportedly celebrating his parents' 50th wedding anniversary, drinking lots and lots of vodka on ice and whiskey for about four hours, when suddenly, he went blind, according to Time.
"I thought it had got dark and I'd missed out on a bit of time but it was only about half-past-three in the afternoon," Duthie, who tutors at the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki, told the New Zealand Herald. "I was fumbling around the bedroom for the light switch but ... I'd just gone completely blind."
Then, like any good drunk, Duthie reasoned he'd just try and sleep off the blindness. However, unlike alcohol-related blackouts, which end when a person wakes up, Duthie's darkness consumed him, persisting even when he opened his eyes the following morning. At a loss for what had happened, his wife drove him to Taranaki Base Hospital.
Once Duthie arrived, doctors almost immediately carried the still-blind man into surgery, said The Herald.
"I don't remember much after I arrived in hospital," Duthie said. "I know the doctor told my wife to say goodbye because they didn't think I'd be coming out again."
Doctors thought that Duthie was suffering from formaldehyde poisoning, which occurs when methanol - a common byproduct of home-brewed alcoholic beverages - metabolizes into formaldehyde, the Herald reported. In his case, they believed that the alcohol he had ingested reacted with the five medications he was taking to manage his diabetes, stuff.co.nz reported.
To treat this kind of poisoning physicians administer ethanol, a chemical commonly found in alcoholic beverages that prevents the formation of the harmful compound.
On big problem though: the hospital didn't have an adequate amount of ethanol to work as an antidote.
Lucky for Duthie, the hospital was quick to improvise.
Doctors ordered the hospital's registrar to purchase a $55 bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey from a local liquor store, and Duthie received a whiskey drip to his stomach through a tube routed first through his nose, the Herald reported.
Just five days later, Duthie awoke in the intensive care unit with his sight fully restored, feeling "good as gold."
Not surprisingly, Duthie has a warm spot for the hospital and physicians that saved him, and their creative cure.
"I thought it was pretty bloody good - I'm alive," he said. "The hospital was absolutely awesome. Couldn't have been better."
Four months since his brush with blindess, and Duthie reveals that not only is his vision "clear as a bell" but he says he can see better now than he could before he went blin, according to stuff.co.nz.
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