Renaud Prudhomme walked into a bar called Starter in Clermont-Ferrand, France with some friends and his daughter; and had a mind to break the record for shots consumed at the establishment.
56 shots later, the 56-year-old man was fighting for his life. The people he was with tried to help him home in his extremely drunken state, but had to call an ambulance. He died the next day at a hospital.
This incident happened in October 2014 and the man behind the bar that night was convicted of manslaughter. 47-year-old Gilles Crepin was given a four-month suspended sentence Wednesday and was banned from working at bars for a full year.
The Guardian reported that Crepin admitted he made a mistake in encouraging Prudhomme to break the record by displaying the previous one on a board, but the lawyer argues that his client couldn’t have known the deceased had respiratory and alcohol abuse issues.
“It’s a decision guided by emotion and the unconscious desire to set an example,” lawyer Renaud Portejoie said. “We can’t ask every customer who buys alcohol to present their medical certificates.”
Prudhomme’s daughter denied, through her attorney, that she was present for the drinking competition.