Woman's blood alcohol content topples state records

A Sturgis woman had a blood-alcohol level of .708 percent, possibly a state record, when she was found earlier this month behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle parked on Interstate 90, according to Meade County State's Attorney Jesse Sondreal.

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Rapid City Journal

Clewis argued he was too drunk to know that he was assisting in a burglary. I think this lady may have a chance at saying she was too drunk to know whose car she was in. Thankfully she passed out before crashing into someone. At .02 per hour per drink, how many do you have to consume to reach a .70 BAC?

The answer to your question, Martin, is "a lot".

I'd also be interested to see a hypothetical beer/drink breakdown on what it would take to hit over a .7. Likely, it would be a case/litre measure, and not a bottle/drink measure.

I'm pretty sure I've never seen anything more than the rare low .4.

A measurement in the .3's is not that unusual, but normally they are snot slinging staggering drunk in the .3's.

I would love to see what this woman looks like! (See peopleofwalmart.com for ideas.)

Just to ballpark it. That is about 15 beers or so in a normal size woman. That doesn't count the drinks she metabolized in the time it took to drink those 15 beers.

Forget the blood alcohol, what about her bladder?

Dwain Fuller
Forensic Toxicologist

Not to derail this thread...but your beers must be really BIG or your person must be extremely small....having dosed hundreds of people in my time, 15 standard beers aint' gonna get you anywhere close to .70

Yes, I was being extremely conservative with Widmark, body weight and by assuming a bolus body burden. Actual dosing entails a high Widmark Beta factor at high concentrations and also has an absorption time componet to consider. That is why I said ballpark. But you are right, I would expect actual dosing to require significantly more. Didn't want to belabor the point to the chief audience of this forum. Had I said a greater number, someone would gotten out their little card calculator and tell me I was wrong as well. A no win situation.

So "a lot" of booze was REALLY a good answer!

Here's her mug shot.

The court summons lists her height as 5'5" and her weight as 155 lbs. It states that she bonded out at the hospital. I would assume that the mug shot was taken at a later date.

Yes, "a lot" is a really good answer. I couldn't have said it better myself...and apparently I didn't.

BTW. She weighs "a lot" more than I gave her credit for. The weight I used made a better visual. The mugshot spoiled all that.

Maybe she threw up a little bit in her mouth before blowing. Isn't the most likely explanation that the test was not administered correctly?

It says it was her blood alcohol level, not breath. Throwing up doesn't affect a blood test.

Marty: "Your first drummer was, uh?"
David: "John Stumpy Peeps. Great, great, tall blonde geek with glasses. Uh..."
Nigel: "Good drummer."
David: "Great look, good drummer, yeah."
Nigel: "Good, good, drummer"
David: "Yeah, fine drummer."
Marty: "What happened to him?"
David: "He died. He died in a bizarre gardening accident some years back."
Nigel: "It was really one of those things. You know, the authorities said, you know, best leave it, you know..."
David: "It's not talked about..."
Nigel: "...unsolved, you know."
Marty: "And he was replaced by?"
David: "Stumpy Joe. Eric 'Stumpy Joe' Chiles"
Nigel: "Eric Chiles."
Marty: "And what happened to Stumpy Joe?"
Derek Smalls: "Well, it's not a very pleasant story, but uh..."
David: "He's passed on."
Derek: "He died-- He choked on-- The ac-- The official explaination was, he choked on vomit. He past away."
Nigel: "It was actually someone else's vomit."
David: "It was ugly."
Nigel: "You know, there's no real..."
Derek: "Well, they can't prove whose vomit it was. They never-- They don't have facilities in Scotland Yard to..."
Nigel: "You can't really dust for vomit."

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin Peterson:
At .02 per hour per drink, how many do you have to consume to reach a .70 BAC?

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At .02/beer, that's 35 beers, plus one more beer for every hour she was drinking beforehand. My guess is she was shotgunning Everclear.

DwainF, what do you mean, she weighs "a lot more" than the average woman? The average American woman, depending on whose stats you believe, is 5'4", weighs between 140-169, and wears a size 14. What antiquated charts tell you that 5'5" and 155 lbs. is "a lot" more than average? Look around your workplace, your family, your local grocery store and see if the new average more accurately reflects the population than some outdated fantasy of the Average Woman.

And her booking photo is not as scary as I imagined it would be, but it's not from the .7 night.

Wow, I didn't mean to bring down so much wrath. What I actually said was "a lot more than I gave her credit for". Of course my original post did imply that was average. So mea culpa. You are right in your assessment of what average actually is. If I had known that my light-hearted off-the-cuff guesstimate was going to be so scrutinized I would have stuck with my better judgement and not posted anything. I really have no misogynistic tendencies. Perhaps my biggest mistake was underestimating what a tough crowd this is.

Here's Dwain's website

http://forensictoxicologyconsultant.com/index.html

Has anyone here ever used him as a witness for the State?

To answer the question for you: I don't recall testifying for the state of Texas, in criminal matters at least. However, as my website states, I am available to either side of the aisle; I strive to simply tell the truth. Most of my prosecution side of the aisle experience is in Nevada where I ran a lab that provided forensic toxicology services for the state for 11 years. I think my lack of prosecution side testimony here is because you guys usually have your own state or county lab experts.

Not trying to drum up business, but I would be happy to discuss cases with any of you.

Not sure whether it's a function of us being a tough crowd so much that we are a little more sensitive having just came off the holidays with a few more pounds... That's one gift I wish Santa would've just taken back to the North Pole with him. Every year, the old man leaves it for me and I keep trying to return it but it's nonreturnable.