So when they pulled David Bisard over this time, he blew a .17 BAC at the roadside. From what I am reading, they carted him off and drew blood (following the proper protocol this time) and got a .22 at the hospital.
Part of this disparity could be chalked up to the different systems, I suppose, but another part could be that he was still metabolizing alcohol, since when they fetched a warrant and searched the truck, they found a partially-emptied bottle of vodka.
Friends and neighbors, being upright and running around and engaging in conversation, to say nothing of operating a motor vehicle well enough to get to the crash site, with a .22 BAC is not something that amateur drinkers can do. Those are the actions of someone on the pro circuit; a high functioning alcoholic. That dude is in serious need of a drying-out.
Agreed. People that I've delt with that have that high of a BAC and are still functioning (well, concious at least) tend to be repeat customers.
ReplyDeletePBTs (the tape recorder sized units) are not calibrated/zero'd.
ReplyDeletePBTs are notorious inaccurate as they are subject to the rigors of a scout car's trunk (heat, cold, banged about, etc.). The old head of the Department of Toxicology in Indianapolis had designs to calibrate them but no money to do so.
Blood draw could be reported as high too if it was serum test. Whole blood test would give better result, however I do not know if that facility does serum or whole.
Shootin' Buddy
The highest BAC I ever saw on the meter was a 98 lb gal who read a reasl live .35 and was still mostly up and coherent. That one got a trip to the hospital.
ReplyDeleteWait, they actually got a warrant before searching his vehicle?
ReplyDeleteThat's weird. IANAL, but unless there's a state-specific law or court ruling saying otherwise, that's actually one of the few situations that they don't need a warrant. I wouldn't expect them to jump through the hoops for a warrant unless they had to.
And, yeah. Functional at .22 BAC? He's enough of a hard-core drinker that he probably has to worry about bad things happening if his BAC gets too low.
Lightweights :-D
ReplyDelete.3+ is where the big boys play
Or is this why I have all those stories that end in "And then I got alcohol poisoning"?
for the record these days I'm a respectable "adult" and even in those days I never drove while drinking. They wouldn't call it a misspent youth if you used it wisely
Nice to see the FOP covering their ass on this one.
ReplyDeleteThey should drop their support for him on the earlier case like a hot rock. But they won't.
Jake,
ReplyDelete"Wait, they actually got a warrant before searching his vehicle?"
The second they realized who it was, I would bet that everybody started dotting i's and crossing t's and double-checking each other's work.
Blood results are always higher than breath results. Direct testing vs indirect. Or as someone else mentioned, his BAC was still on the way up. Very common for PBT results to be a few points different than final breathalyzer or blood test results. In fact it is odd when they match...
ReplyDeleteDamn and I used to think "Undaunted by common sense" was MY motto.
ReplyDelete.17? .22? And rimfire ammunition is impossible to obtain. Coincidence? I think NOT!!
ReplyDeleteWait, I think I have the shiny side in, it's setting up a superheterodyne loop in my prefrontal lobe. PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
You said Pro-Circuit and I thought of dirtbike pipes - so where's his crack at, jack? Guys like that should be busy with more than just Smirnoff in order to stay upright.
ReplyDeleteSome years ago Lafayette, Indiana had an attorney who crashed his car and scored a "0.43" on the blood alcohol scale.
ReplyDeleteHe was from my home town and I had known him since grade school and those who didn't know him (or his father) wanted to know HOW he was still alive?
For us however the answer was pretty simple, he had spent years developing his resistence to alcohol. Unfortunately, he finally passed away a few years after the event, but YES he was way above the "Pro" class of drinker...
All The Best,
Frank W. James
Which is better for vermin? .17 BAC or .22 BAC?
ReplyDelete@ Joseph: A real man's BAC should start with a ".4" or higher.
ReplyDeleteSorry, over a decade and a half in the ED speaking sez .22 is a lightweight, except for freshman sorority rushes during pledge week.
ReplyDeleteThe pro tour starts in the high .30s and low .40s, ranges to the .80s (and they're still ALIVE, CONSCIOUS, and ambulatory!!--okay, sometimes stumbulatory) and they start getting DTs if they drop to the low .20s.
Any number of DUI drive throughs with attending officers tend to confirm that anyone driving visibly impaired is usually double the legal limit, .16-.20, depending on your jurisdiction and their size and consumption.
Anyone driving visibly impaired is therefore quite hammered.
Wondering if this guy maybe has a hollow baton with a cork in the handle.
Stumbulatory. That's a keeper.
ReplyDelete"Stumbulatory. That's a keeper."
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'd love to work it into a patient report, but I'd probably get dinged for it. It still might be worth it,though.
When the local RCMP got their first breathalyser quite a few year ago they were told that anyone above a certain percentage was dead. I can't recall the numbers now, but their first customer, who was well known to them, was officially dead by quite a bit and still standing.
ReplyDeleteMy wife passed the field sobriety test and blew a .20 BAC at an accident. Luckily for her, the bicyclist was at fault (on the sidewalk going the wrong direction with bikelanes available) and wasn't hurt, but her intoxication didn't help. She got to AA after that and stopped drinking.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who has killed and maimed due to their intoxication and still continues to drink needs to be taken out of circulation for our safety.
Shootin' Buddy, that's odd. Our PBTs have to be calibrated monthly versus a known BAC content solution (must be within .05). Still not great accuracy compared to the barrack unit or good old fashioned blood test and not admissible in court, but better than nothing.
ReplyDeleteLol, we had to commit my uncle to the VA one time on a saturday. His BAC on TUESDAY was still above the legal limit!
ReplyDeleteBut this was a man who for 20yrs drink a pint when he got up, a pint when he got to work(as a large equipment mechanic!!), drank a pint at lunch, drank apint when leaving work and then went to the bar until 11pm-midnight! Every Single Day.
SteveA