After a night of drinking, underage students may wake up with more than just a hangover — they might have the paperwork to prove they partied a little too hard.

Whether an individual ends up with legal troubles for an underage depends on how they get to the hospital.

Denise Schlea, a charge nurse in the Wood County Hospital emergency department, said there are two ways individuals wind up in the emergency room for over-intoxication. Patients are either brought in by ambulance because they’ve been found unresponsive, or by a friend because they can’t stop vomiting or stay awake, she said.

Although the hospital is not concerned with a patient’s legal matters, Schlea said, they must know their age because of privacy issues; if the patient is a minor, parents must be notified.

Schlea said most people who are brought to the ER for being overly intoxicated are college-age students on the weekends.

“Very few of the people that come into our department for excessive drinking are over the age of 21,” she said. “Usually from Thursday through Saturday evenings we see a higher incidence of it.”

Schlea said they don’t treat underage patients any differently than of-age patients, and if the individual has not already been cited by police, hospital staff cannot report them due to privacy laws.

Paul Cowdrey, firefighter for the Bowling Green Fire Department, said when someone places a 911 call, it goes to the police dispatcher, who determines the type of call and who should arrive on the scene. If an individual is passed out in public, the call will most likely be deemed medical, in which case both the police and an ambulance will arrive.

Police are typically already on the scene when the ambulance arrives for an intoxication call, Cowdrey said.

Lt. Tony Hetrick, of the Bowling Green Police Division, said upon arriving, police will attempt to identify the subject and their age. Typically individuals are cited for disorderly conduct, unable to care for self and underage under the influence, he said. An ambulance will take the unconscious person to the hospital if no one is present to take care of them.

“If they’re a complete jerk and they’re still disorderly … that opens up another can of worms for them, because we’re not going to allow the disorderly conduct to continue,” Hetrick said.

The subject may even be taken to jail, Hetrick said.

“If there’s no one who can take control of them — no one to watch them, so to speak — we’re obligated to make sure they’re cared for,” he said.

Before sending the individual to the hospital, police usually do not place them under arrest, because this may deem police responsible for the medical bills.

“We argue that we’re not [responsible] because we didn’t put you in that position,” Hetrick said, “You put yourself in that position.”

Hetrick said police deal with intoxication calls several times a week, but an underage scenario, a few times a month. In his experience, he said, when police receive a call of an overly drunk person in public it’s usually someone who’s underage.

When an underage student winds up in the back of an ambulance, they are likely to have a run-in with the police.

“You’re going to get a ticket at least,” Hetrick said.