28 UMass students hospitalised after trying TikTok Borg drinking trend

A university has issued a warning to its students over a TikTok drinking trend after 28 people were hospitalised by doing it.

The University of Massachusetts gave a warning to students about the so-called “BORG” drinking game, which sees young people drink a gallon of liquid that is a concoction of alcohol, electrolytes, flavourings and water. The mixture is allegedly known as “BORG” or a “blackout rage gallon”.

Over one weekend, almost 30 ambulances were reportedly called to off-campus parties for student alcohol intoxication. According to the Amherst Fire Department, none of the cases were life-threatening, meanwhile, UMass Police arrested two for underage drinking.

The BORG binge-drinking trend is thought to be spreading on the social media platform TikTok and led the university to make a statement about it.

UMass added that all new students are required to take an alcohol education class that “includes information about the size of standard drinks, and physiological and medical risks of binge drinking”.

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The university also said it was assessing the incidents over the weekend and would take further steps to improve education around alcohol.

It seems that UMass isn’t the only university to see students taking part in the trend. One TikTok viewed more than 2.5 million times showed a student, allegedly at The University of Texas, demonstrating how she made a gallon of BORG.

She began with a gallon bottle of water and poured half of it out before adding half a bottle of vodka. She then added MiO, a liquid water enhancer that contains caffeine, B vitamins and electrolytes. The final step saw her add another can of energy drink.

One person responded, warning: “you are never supposed to mix energy drinks with alcohol.”

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