It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and
lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency
room at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with
fear: Santa Claus, he kept telling the nurses, was just behind him,
wielding a baseball bat.
Before hospital staff realized how sick he was—the alcohol-induced
hallucination was just a symptom—the man died. So did another holiday
partygoer. And another. As dusk fell on Christmas, the hospital staff
tallied up more than 60 people made desperately ill by alcohol and eight
dead from it. Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in
the city from celebrating the season.
Read more: here
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