Instantly "EXTREME DUI?"

[AngryDevil]

A guy loses control of his gals car in a turn and wrecks he panics and leaves the scene he has a suspended license has just totalled the car and fears its all over he runs home and drains a large bottle of high proof alcohol mix w/ a bit of water in about 10 mins. the police take him into custody and he is sent to the hospital while there they do a blood draw approx 45min- 1 hour from the time of consumption....the blood read is 267mg/dl which translates to a breath test reading of .026....how is this possible...?

 

[justalayman]

even after prompting you you deleted the state question.

I guess you fail the test.

If you did not see the prompt, my apologies. I just tried to start a new thread in this topic and was not shown the prompt so you may not have been faced with it either.

 

[CdwJava]

A guy loses control of his gals car in a turn and wrecks he panics and leaves the scene he has a suspended license has just totalled the car and fears its all over he runs home and drains a large bottle of high proof alcohol mix w/ a bit of water in about 10 mins. the police take him into custody and he is sent to the hospital while there they do a blood draw approx 45min- 1 hour from the time of consumption....the blood read is 267mg/dl which translates to a breath test reading of .026....how is this possible...?

How is WHAT possible? The low BAC?

It is not uncommon for drunk drivers to try and conceal their offense by drinking after a crash and before they are caught.

 

[arsenic]

A guy loses control of his gals car in a turn and wrecks he panics and leaves the scene he has a suspended license has just totalled the car and fears its all over he runs home and drains a large bottle of high proof alcohol mix w/ a bit of water in about 10 mins. the police take him into custody and he is sent to the hospital while there they do a blood draw approx 45min- 1 hour from the time of consumption....the blood read is 267mg/dl which translates to a breath test reading of .026....how is this possible...?

If you are asking if a 0.026 BAC is possible, sure it is. I think the *average* BAC of someone arrested for a DUI is already 0.016. It is not all that rare to see 0.03.

 

[AngryDevil]

I believe the math here is wrong...this would be equal to .26 darn decimals Can the alcohol actually enter the bloodstream THAT quickly?

 

[CdwJava]

I believe the math here is wrong...this would be equal to .26 darn decimals Can the alcohol actually enter the bloodstream THAT quickly?

I assumed you had the BAC reading correct and glossed over the mg/dl amount in your first post ... if the alcohol was at 267 mg/dl then, strictly speaking, it might equal a BAC of .267. However, hospitals use a different approach to testing than most crime labs: plasma vs. whole blood. The hospital result should be higher than the whole blood method, so we are probably looking at a BAC of about .226 or thereabouts. Still high - VERY high - but possible.

Absorption rates are not as limited as the purge rate. If little or no food, the alcohol could be absorbed quite quickly so a .226 BAC in an hour is not impossible with the downing of a bottle of booze. But, since it is very likely he was already impaired BEFORE the crash, some of that alcohol was already in his system.

 

[arsenic]

If you are asking if a 0.026 BAC is possible, sure it is. I think the *average* BAC of someone arrested for a DUI is already 0.016. It is not all that rare to see 0.03.

Sheeesh. I got the decimal points all wrong.

0.26
0.16
0.30

in usual measurement units.

Sorry.

And thanks CDW for not ripping into obvious arithmetic errors.

 

[CdwJava]

I try not to cast stones ... my house is often covered in glass.

 

[AngryDevil]

I assumed you had the BAC reading correct and glossed over the mg/dl amount in your first post ... if the alcohol was at 267 mg/dl then, strictly speaking, it might equal a BAC of .267. However, hospitals use a different approach to testing than most crime labs: plasma vs. whole blood. The hospital result should be higher than the whole blood method, so we are probably looking at a BAC of about .226 or thereabouts. Still high - VERY high - but possible.

Absorption rates are not as limited as the purge rate. If little or no food, the alcohol could be absorbed quite quickly so a .226 BAC in an hour is not impossible with the downing of a bottle of booze. But, since it is very likely he was already impaired BEFORE the crash, some of that alcohol was already in his system.

Impartiality is the key here. When you say "purge rate" I'm assuming you mean the metabolization of the alcohol sometimetimes referred to as the "burnoff rate"? The science of this particular case/scenario is a bit facinating.

The Burnoff rate/ Purge rate, although influenced by many factors, is generally averaged to be @ about .015% per hour. In this scenario the patient was tested 3hours & 45 min. later. The new numbers were 157mg/dl. After doing the math you find that this patient had a Burnoff/metabolization/Purge rate very near twice the considered avg.
Do "we" have an "accepted avg." when it comes to absortion rates?

 

[woodykas]

The Burnoff rate/ Purge rate, although influenced by many factors, is generally averaged to be @ about .015% per hour. In this scenario the patient was tested 3hours & 45 min. later. The new numbers were 157mg/dl. After doing the math you find that this patient had a Burnoff/metabolization/Purge rate very near twice the considered avg.
Do "we" have an "accepted avg." when it comes to absortion rates?

it has no sense at all, this person had BAC => .08, that is quite enough for conviction. there is nothing more to discuss.

 

[CdwJava]

Impartiality is the key here. When you say "purge rate" I'm assuming you mean the metabolization of the alcohol sometimetimes referred to as the "burnoff rate"? The science of this particular case/scenario is a bit facinating.

The Burnoff rate/ Purge rate, although influenced by many factors, is generally averaged to be @ about .015% per hour. In this scenario the patient was tested 3hours & 45 min. later. The new numbers were 157mg/dl. After doing the math you find that this patient had a Burnoff/metabolization/Purge rate very near twice the considered avg.
Do "we" have an "accepted avg." when it comes to absortion rates?

Your 157 mg/dl level would equate to about .133 BAC. So, if we assume that the subject went from about .226 to .133 in 3 hours, I would agree that the absorption rate over three hours would be about double the average. But, there are other factors that might come into play with the testing of plasma versus whole blood - and the equation can be off by as high as 25% in some cases.

And, no, there is no accepted average absorption rate because there are to many variables, and it can be so extreme as to cause death if consumed in a short period of time. The purge rate is generally between .010 and .015 per hours.

So, who are you in this situation and what is your legal question? No matter how you slice it, the person was still WELL over the per se limit ... though making a case for DUI if he was nearly an hour away from the car and had been drinking at home before the arrest is going to be tough.

If you are the driver, consult legal counsel.

 

[arsenic]

I would just add that all these BAC charts and calculations are averages, with unknown standard deviation (at least that I have ever read). When I got my DUI, I had calculated that I was hovering around 0.08 (yeah, still dumb), but the blood test came back much higher than that.

Also, ir is likely that the charts are based on healthy, young volunteers. Which I am not.

 

[ecmst12]

Did this actually happen or is this a hypothetical scenario?

 

[AngryDevil]

I DO NOT TRUST THIS WEBSITE OR THE ADMINISTRATORS BECAUSE ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS i HAVE HAD NY BLOGS OR POSTED QUESTIONS BLOCKED****************************

 

[ecmst12]

We don't do hypothetical situations here and you didn't even list a state. There are rules here.