Pledge OK after O.D.

Alcohol can kill you. That’s the lesson to be learned—or learned once again—following the near-death of an 18-year-old Chico State University freshman sorority pledge who overdosed on alcohol last Thursday (Feb. 19).

Bethany Dixon survived, but it was a close call. She’d been attending a Sigma Kappa function and reportedly ended up shortly before midnight at a house across from the Bell Memorial Union, where she passed out and couldn’t be revived. Sorority sisters called an ambulance, and she was admitted to Enloe Hospital in critical condition. She was released Saturday.

Both the university and Sigma Kappa’s national headquarters have suspended the sorority pending investigations.

The Chico State student newspaper, The Orion, reported this week that another 18-year-old Sigma Kappa pledge was similarly hospitalized four years earlier to the day, on Feb. 19, 2005.