A man found dead inside a Columbus restaurant early Monday had passed out after a drinking game with an off-duty employee, and the alcohol content in his body was well over lethal levels, Lowndes County”s coroner said.
Acute alcohol intoxication killed John Caldwell of Columbus at Ruben”s Fish House early Monday morning, according to Lowndes County Coroner Greg Merchant.
Caldwell, the safety director at Burkhalter Rigging Inc., died after a drinking contest with Joey Cox, an off-duty bartender at Ruben”s, Merchant said. Over the course of about an hour on Sunday evening, the two men tried to out-drink each other before employees took them away from the bar.
Caldwell”s blood alcohol level was 0.5 percent, Merchant said. A potentially lethal level, according to Merchant, is 0.35 to 0.4 percent. Mississippi”s legal limit to be considered intoxicated is .08 percent.
He compared the rate the men drank to a flash flood. “If it rains 3 inches over three days, that”s a lot of water, but you”re going to be OK,” Merchant said. “If it rains 3 inches in an hour, you”ve got a hell of a problem.”
Both men were put in a booth so they could sleep off the alcohol.
“The two were laid downstairs and made comfortable,” Merchant said. “They went as far as to put some chairs under their legs so they wouldn”t fall out of the booths, and something was put under their heads. They could have been somewhere a lot worse.”
Employees tried to check on the two men every half hour, but they eventually got busy with other customers.
“Time gets away from you when you”re busy,” Merchant said. “You think it”s only been half and an hour when it”s really been an hour and a half. I think they were checked on around 11 p.m.”
However, Merchant said that it was not his job to assign blame.
“When a man sits down there, he assumes a certain amount of risk himself,” he said.
Caldwell”s family was unavailable for comment, and a phone number for Cox could not be found by press time.
Merchant said he hopes to interview some of his sources again today to clarify the progression of events.
Detective Ryan Rickert of the Lowndes County Sheriff”s Department is exploring the case but would not comment.
“All I can say is that it”s under investigation,” Rickert said. “I have an obligation to protect the innocent.”
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