Katie, 23, is one drink from death

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Katie, 23, is one drink from death
Docs warn girl after sinking 50 units a day

Katie 23 is one drink from death

PARTY loving holiday rep Katie Lings could DIE if she has just one more drink—because she was downing a staggering 50 units a DAY.

Katie, 23, got through FIVE PINTS of her favourite vodka and Red Bull mix, and necked at least FOUR COCKTAILS every day.

But after a three-month bender her KIDNEYS failed, part of her PANCREAS died, her LIVER is permanently scarred, and her SPLEEN may have to be removed.

Now doctors have warned: “Never touch alcohol again—a single drink could kill you.”

Last night Katie, from Derby, said: “Drinking that amount was ludicrous, and I’m only thankful that I’m still alive.”

Her downfall —in which she drank nearly FOUR TIMES the WEEKLY 14-unit alcohol limit for women every DAY—started last summer after she and best pal Siobhan got jobs selling tickets to guided bar crawls in the party resort of Magaluf, Majorca.

Slim Katie, who is 5ft 8in and weighs 9 stone, admitted: “By the time the plane landed we were drunk, and we didn’t sober up for three months until my body finally told me it couldn’t take any more alcohol.”

She would down a half-pint mixture of vodka and Red Bull for breakfast, and not get to bed until 7am the following day, having sunk five pints of vodka and Red Bull, and at least four cocktails.

She explained: “There’s about six units of alcohol in each pint and five in each cocktail so I must have been putting away 50 units every day. That’s insane.”

Within weeks, the booze was ravaging her body and causing her to look bloated, despite the fact she was skipping meals and snacking on junk food.

Katie put on two stone, going from a size 10 to a 14. But in August, her body finally gave in as she keeled over in agony.

She was rushed to hospital and spent ten days in intensive care where doctors diagnosed kidney failure, acute pancreatitis and thrombosis. They told her another drink could kill her. “It sounded ridiculous,” she said. “I was in my 20s!”

Katie—who first tasted alcohol at 13 and was regularly drinking cider with pals in the park by 16—spent six weeks in hospital, returning to Britain in October. She still faces an op to remove a 12cm cyst on her pancreas, and her damaged spleen may need to be removed.

She added: “I’m a 23-year-old girl trapped in the body of an old woman with all my partying days behind me.

“My health is in tatters, and the thought of being teetotal forever seems impossible.

“But that’s what I must do if I want to live. I’ve only got myself to blame—if I’d known it would have ended like this I’d have stuck to orange juice.”

ALCOHOL HAS POISONED HER BODY
By Dr Hilary Jones

KATIE is lucky to be alive but has stored up a host of medical problems, says News of the World GP, Dr Hilary Jones.

Drinking up to 350 UNITS a WEEK would have poisoned every organ in her body.

It takes one hour for the liver to break down each unit of alcohol—so there just weren’t enough hours in the day to prevent a toxic accumulation of alcohol in her blood.

The impact on Katie’s body would have been worse because of her slight build. Her liver will always be scarred, her inflamed pancreas has made her vulnerable to diabetes, and she also risked death because her kidneys failed.

Katie would also have lost millions of brain cells, and her muscles, nerves, skin and hair will all have deteriorated too.

She also risked a fatal blood clot, and might still have to have her spleen removed to prevent trouble with clotting in the future—because it might have been damaged by her swollen pancreas.