In the previous blog, the AP story is about a man arrested with a lethal dose of alcohol concentration in his blood, .491%. Not only did he survive (the highest known level for someone who did) he was driving prior to his arrest.
Intoxicated driving is a particularly relevant topic for a brain injury attorney, as so much of what we do involve motor vehicle wrecks. It has and always will be one of the most serious hazards on the roads. As someone who has dealt with BAC’s over .30 on occasion, this one is staggering. The highest I have run into in my practice is a .40, but that was in a young man who died of alcohol intoxication.
The highest I encountered with a defendant driver was a .32, which quite outrageously was in a pharmacist, who was actually “on call”. He admitted to me in his deposition (shortly before the case settled) that any concentration above .30 is potentially lethal.
Alcohol and driving don’t mix. But the equation isn’t quite that simple. Alcohol, driving and late night driving, are particularly dangerous.
Fatigue is one of the single biggest factors in alcohol related accidents and way too many people, drive the drunkest, when they would otherwise be asleep. In addition to the far too common situation of an intoxicated driver falling asleep, alcohol is particularly dangerous when an unexpected situation presents itself to the driver.
Pure reaction time doesn’t change dramatically at and around the legal limit of .08, but unexpected reaction times change significantly. By unexpected reactions times I mean the type of situation where something unexpected happened that required the driver to think and use instant judgment, as part of the reaction.
What makes the combination of fatigue and alcohol so deadly is that fatigue has very similar effects on situational reaction. Add the two risk factors together and you have an exponential increase in danger.2008
RI cops arrest man with 0.491 blood alcohol level
Date: 07/22/2008 09:02 PM
RI cops arrest man with 0.491 blood alcohol level
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) _ State police say they arrested a man early Tuesday whose blood alcohol level was 0.491 percent — the highest ever recorded in Rhode Island for someone who wasn’t dead.
Stanley Kobierowski was taken to a hospital, put in the detoxification unit and sedated, said Maj. Steven O’Donnell. He was arraigned Tuesday on charges of driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest, and he was released after promising to appear Friday at a court hearing.
“The person’s lucky they survived,” O’Donnell said. “There’s no doubt he would have gotten killed or killed someone if he had continued on the route he was taking.”
A phone listing for Kobierowski could not be found, and he did not have a lawyer in court Tuesday.
Kobierowski, 34, of North Providence, was arrested after he drove into a highway message board on Interstate 95 in Providence, O’Donnell said.
After police arrived, Kobierowski had trouble getting out of the car, then grabbed it and refused to move, forcing troopers to carry him to the breakdown lane before taking him back to their barracks, O’Donnell said.
A breath test showed blood alcohol readings of 0.489 percent, followed by 0.491, O’Donnell said, the highest readings state officials could remember for someone who didn’t end up dead.
The legal limit in Rhode Island is 0.08. A level of 0.30 is classified as stupor, 0.4 is comatose and 0.5 is considered fatal, according to the health department.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
RI cops arrest man with 0.491 blood alcohol level
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) _ State police say they arrested a man early Tuesday whose blood alcohol level was 0.491 percent — the highest ever recorded in Rhode Island for someone who wasn’t dead.
Stanley Kobierowski was taken to a hospital, put in the detoxification unit and sedated, said Maj. Steven O’Donnell. He was arraigned Tuesday on charges of driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest, and he was released after promising to appear Friday at a court hearing.
“The person’s lucky they survived,” O’Donnell said. “There’s no doubt he would have gotten killed or killed someone if he had continued on the route he was taking.”
A phone listing for Kobierowski could not be found, and he did not have a lawyer in court Tuesday.
Kobierowski, 34, of North Providence, was arrested after he drove into a highway message board on Interstate 95 in Providence, O’Donnell said.
After police arrived, Kobierowski had trouble getting out of the car, then grabbed it and refused to move, forcing troopers to carry him to the breakdown lane before taking him back to their barracks, O’Donnell said.
A breath test showed blood alcohol readings of 0.489 percent, followed by 0.491, O’Donnell said, the highest readings state officials could remember for someone who didn’t end up dead.
The legal limit in Rhode Island is 0.08. A level of 0.30 is classified as stupor, 0.4 is comatose and 0.5 is considered fatal, according to the health department.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
