The students shuffled around Apartment M in an effort to hide the evidence of another typical weekend of overindulging in alcohol.
A girl lay on the bathroom floor, coming in and out of consciousness, waking up periodically to dry heave.
One of the residents told the story.
As soon as [my friend] came up to me and said ""[Susan]"" had passed out, I freaked out and said 'Oh no, we should see if she needs to go to the bathroom, if she needs to throw up,' and so we took her in the bathroom and she threw up once, maybe twice,"" she said, emphasizing that her boyfriend who carried her into the bathroom was a lifeguard.
""Has she been drinking?"" MPD Officer Grant Humerickhouse asked, followed by a long chain of subsequent questions.
""Beer and Andre, and I think that's it,"" the resident said, looking at the ceiling, trying to remember which poison had knocked her friend out of consciousness.
""And shots of liquor - of Bacardi. That's it,"" she concluded.
Humerickhouse and the resident stood center stage of this popular house party show, while another student frantically cleared the table of hundreds of dollars worth of alcohol. The other few congregated by the staircase, prepared to be questioned.
""How do you know her?"" Humerickhouse asked the resident.
""She's my friend from last year,"" the resident answered. ""She's my personal friend, my best friend.""
Over by the bathroom, MPD Officer Carrie Hemming and the EMS waited for the girl to finish dry heaving before they could carry her out to the ambulance.
""Go ahead, throw up, you're OK,"" Hemming said in a gentle voice.
Incidents like these show the side of house parties beyond a keg in the corner and a crowded dance floor.
The presumably innocent house party can quickly progress from taking a few shots to a student lying in his or her own vomit. The Madison Police and EMS came to Apartment M to bring a student back to consciousness, not to ""bust"" students for drinking or break up a party.
""We're not here to deal with underage drinking,"" Humerickhouse explained to the staggering students. ""We just don't want people to die. Just call us right away next time.""
Police officers will write tickets for the residents of the house, but often will not write tickets to the people who only attended the party, according to Humerickhouse.
""The people that had the party will have some citations. The people that provided alcohol will also have a ... citation,"" he said. ""But the people that were there, I don't want to ruin them.""
Susan ended up in the hospital with a tube sucking vomit out of her throat. The officers said her night would end with a visit to detox.
Here, students sleep in a room containing one object: a bed without sheets. The door to the room is covered with dents and scratches.
If more objects than this were included, students might try to commit suicide by hanging themselves, explained Mary Ransom, the nursing supervisor of the Tellurian Detoxification Center Mary Ransom.
""College students are pretty arrogant,"" Ransom said. ""When they come in and they're fighting, we'll put [them] down on their belly because when people are so drunk, they can throw up and it can go back into their lungs.""
Facing the repercussions
Students run into danger at house parties when they drink until they cannot measure their degree of inebriation.
""I've had four or five shots,"" the Apartment M resident said once again to Humerickhouse.
""I just want to make sure you're not repeating yourself because you're intoxicated and can't take care of yourself, or because of all the stress of what's going on,"" Humerickhouse explained to the resident of Apartment M.
Humerickhouse asked the resident about the other roommates' whereabouts to make sure the other residents knew what damage the night of drinking had caused.
""She's at home,"" the resident stammered, promptly repeating ""home"" six times. The repetitive speech shows one sign of students losing control of their actions, Humerickhouse said.
""That's how UW students justify it. 'I'm OK, I'm not that drunk,'"" Humerickhouse said. ""The argument could be made, any drink in your system makes you 'not OK' because it impairs your decision, i.e. letting your friend pass out in your bathroom because your boyfriend's a lifeguard.""
Another concern police officers have with house parties is students splitting up from their friends and abandoning a plan to stay together for the night.
""By the end of the night, people want to go elsewhere, and that's where it gets dangerous,"" UWPD officer Jason Whitney said. ""[Students] may have nobody to assist them if they're incapacitated and decide they're walking home alone, likely from a greater distance from they're used to and maybe from an area that they're not familiar with.""
Humerickhouse explained the importance of limiting the amount of drinking at house parties.
""There's no way to be safe when you're having a large party,"" Humerickhouse said. ""We're out looking for unsafe behavior so we don't have to call parents and tell them that their 19 or 20-year-old son or daughter walked into a lake ... or was a victim of a sexual assault. I can't tell you what it does to a police officer to [report] a sexual assault and know that it could have been prevented.""
On a positive note
According to UW-Madison senior Alix Tarnowsky, students generally do not need to consider the repercussions of attending house parties.
""The worst thing I see is people smoking flavored tobacco out of a hooka,"" she said. ""People aren't throwing up off the balconies.""
Tarnowsky considered house parties safe for students because police officers will most likely not punish students for attending them.
""After freshman year when [a] party got broken up by the police, nothing happened to anyone,"" she said.
UW-Madison senior Kelsea Cicione viewed the effects of binge drinking in a humorous way, rather than as a concern.
""You get sucked into power hour, and think you've only spent eight bucks when you really have hit eight mixers and before you know it, walking's not an option,"" she said.
Other students believe house parties are just a necessary part of the college experience.
""[My roommates and I] did have several parties,"" UW-Madison senior Andy Erickson said. ""A few got busted, but I believe every party we did, we tried to do it right,"" adding that ""doing it right"" meant the roommates stayed sober.
However, even Erickson admitted the officers are simply doing their jobs in issuing drinking tickets.
""I believe they're out there to help us and keep us safe,"" he said.
Regardless of the positive experiences house parties create, officers still worry that students are not considering the repercussions of drinking too much.
""If she dies, you could be looking at criminal charges and civil suits,"" Humerickhouse explained to the residents of Apartment M. ""You had a party, you gambled, you lost.""
