NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A 17-year-old Edgewater boy who had been drinking vodka last night died early this morning at a friend's house on Corbin Park Road just outside the city limits despite efforts by paramedics to revive him, Volusia County Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.
The victim, Jamie Gibson, spent the night at 1160 Corbin Park Road in New Smyrna Beach, where he's friends with two teenage brothers who live at the residence.
"The boys told deputies that Gibson brought vodka in a water bottle to their house and mixed it with ginger ale and then the three of them drank it," Davidson said. "However, the boys said that Gibson drank most of it himself. The drinking apparently went on from about 12:30 a.m. Monday morning until the boys went to sleep at around 2 a.m. At about 3 a.m., Gibson woke up and vomited, then ate some bread and started to feel better and went back to sleep. At about 7:20 a.m., one of the boys alerted his father because he was unable to wake up Gibson."
By that point, Gibson was unresponsive and the Sheriff's Office was contacted at 7:46 a.m., Davidson said. Paramedics with EVAC ambulance and Volusia County Fire Services attempted to revive Gibson as they loaded him into an ambulance for transport to Bert Fish Medical Center in New Smyrna Beach.
Paramedics continued to work on Gibson during the approximately three-mile trip to Bert Fish, but he was pronounced dead at the hospital at 8:52 a.m.
The Volusia County Medical Examiner's Office is scheduled to conduct an autopsy on the victim on Tuesday to determine the cause of death, Davidson said.
The boy was a junior at New Smyrna Beach High School.