On March 6, Sudiksha Konanki, an 20-year-old pre-medical student attending the University of Pittsburgh, went missing in Punta Cana, a popular spring break destination in the Dominican Republic.
She was staying at the RIU Republica Hotel with five other students. After a night of drinking at the hotel bar, surveillance footage captures Konanki walking arm-in-arm toward the beach with 22-year-old college student Joshua Riibe around 4:15 a.m. Her friends left her and Riibe around 5 a.m. According to Riibe, Konanki and he were standing in knee-deep water before a large wave swept her further out to sea. He claims to have rescued her, after which he was unaware of where she went because he was vomiting and passed out.
Konanki hasn't been seen since.
I would like to preface by saying my intention is not to shame students or point fingers at Konanki or anyone involved in the incident. What happened was tragic, and my heart goes out to anyone who is suffering due to her loss. This is not about demonizing alcohol or blaming individuals. It’s about recognizing the dangers of a culture where safety is too often dismissed as overcautious or inconvenient.
Like many American students, I grew up with swarms of messaging encouraging me to “Just Say No” to alcohol. The low-quality videos of students dying from overdosing or choking on their vomit were a staple of high school health classes, yet that sort of rhetoric has always fallen on our seemingly deaf ears. College students will not stop drinking. No matter how much law enforcement cracks down on underage alcohol consumption, fraternities will never stop throwing parties, nor will pre-games or spring break excursions cease.
Party culture is entrenched within our quintessential American undergraduate experience. There is often rhetoric that "safe" partying means you can’t truly have fun. As students, we often bypass what should be nonnegotiable safety precautions before going out because they don’t want to ruin anyone’s night or be a burden.
Safety and enjoyment are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary.
For those of us who drink, there are simple yet lifesaving tasks that all of us should be doing before going out, especially if alcohol is involved. You should have a designated sober driver, share your location with a trusted friend in the area, adhere to the buddy-group system and pre-plan logistics for the night. Additionally, surround yourself with those you trust and those whose character you have the utmost faith in.
Chapel Hill is notorious for its excessive drinking culture. Within my first week at UNC, multiple friends of mine had unintentionally found themselves in dangerous situations following nights of unsafe drinking practices. I find it extremely terrifying how normalized it has become for students to regularly get blackout drunk and wake up the next morning not remembering a single thing; for intoxicated students to stagger down Franklin Street — unaccompanied — at late hours of the night; for young women to be coerced into taking shot after shot by men with despicable intentions; for entire groups to unintentionally abandon one of their friends in the heat of the moment.
