Woman ties county blood alcohol record

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) -- A Pierce County woman apparently tied a record for the amount of alcohol in her blood when the Washington State Patrol toxicology lab measured a blood-alcohol content of 0.50 two hours after she was arrested for investigation of drunken driving.

Ann Marie Gordon, manager of the lab in Seattle, said the reading - more than six times the legal limit of 0.08 - tied the highest level ever found by technicians at the patrol's lab. A King County driver also registered 0.50 on a blood test in 2000, Gordon said.

"It certainly would kill many people," she said.

The average blood-alcohol content of drunken drivers stopped in Washington is about 0.15, Gordon added.

Rebecca G. Lingbloom, 45, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to one count of driving under the influence of alcohol on May 10. Authorities contended in an affidavit that she nearly hit a pedestrian that day and was seen swerving all over the road.

A Pierce County sheriff's deputy later found her passed out behind the wheel of her car in the Summit area, the affidavit states.

Deputy Prosecutor Bradley Moericke pointed out that Lingbloom was arrested for investigation of drunken driving twice in the 1990s, and asked District Court Judge Frank Dacca to jail her in lieu of $20,000 bail. Moericke also asked that Lingbloom be monitored with an electronic bracelet that would record her movements should she make bail.

Dacca declined both requests after Lingbloom told him she enrolled in a six-month treatment program for alcohol abuse not long after her arrest. Public defender Clarence Henderson told the judge he called the clinic before Wednesday's hearing and confirmed that Lingbloom was enrolled.

Dacca said he didn't want to jeopardize Lingbloom's treatment by sending her to jail. He did require that she continue her program and report to court July 24 for another hearing.
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Is that right? Half the liquid flowing through her veins was alcohol? She wasn't flat out yet and she survived too? She must have had one tough metabolism. Maybe she can be used for other experiments!

JAS

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Originally posted by JAS:
Is that right? Half the liquid flowing through her veins was alcohol?

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No that is .5 grams/100 ml of blood. In water, 1ml weighs one gram. Alcohol and blood are different, of course, but generally, I think .50 would only mean about 1/200th of the blood was alcohol (more or less depending on the specific gravity of the substances. I think .5g of alcohol is about .64 ml, so it would be more like 1/156th of her blood was alcohol, if I'm doing the math right).

[This message was edited by Wes on 06-22-07 at .]

I think Wes describes it right. My general understanding is that BAC greater than 0.30 can be fatal. My personal experience is that, once you exceed about 0.25, you may throw up your toenails and your head might explode . . .

That makes more sense. To me, math is a very esoteric subject! Dosing our stock requires repeated calculations beforehand and careful monitoring afterwards.
As you said, John, she was pickled--probably more than most vegetables in bottles!

JAS

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Originally posted by JohnR:
I think Wes describes it right. My general understanding is that BAC greater than 0.30 can be fatal. My personal experience is that, once you exceed about 0.25, you may throw up your toenails and your head might explode . . .

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And at .20 I can dance (at least in my own mind)

I wouldn't think I could dance even at that lady's 0.5. I would definitely believe I was invisible, bulletproof, and could fly, but I've never been deluded into thinking I could dance . . .

So somebody calculate how many beers she had to have had to get a BAC that high.

(I'm sure she said that she only had 2 !)

One. A pony keg.

Or, a quart mason jar full of Grandpappy's Finest Firewater (the brand aged since yesterday).

BAC is measured either as a percentage by mass, by mass per volume, or a combination. For example, a BAC of 0.20% can mean 2 grams of alcohol per 1000 grams of an individual's blood, or it can mean 0.2 grams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. (Wikipedia)

But, in some ethnic groups, BAC levels can routinely be seen at levels which are astoundingly high. For example, while in the Public Health Service, we had people walk into the ER in the ".50 club" -- the problem is that de-toxification usually means giving preparations to manage withdrawal, i.e. benzodiazepines such as Librium. The hook is that the quantity necessary to prevent withdrawal may itself cause respiratory failure. Ergo, detoxing from alcohol is far more serious that commonly thought. In the old days (1950's and earlier) 30%of the cases who, while de-toxing, went into DT's (delerium tremens) died. That is rare now, but it is still serious.

My vague recollection is that each drink adds about a .02 to your BAC, while each hour that passes after drinking metabolizes about .02. Soooo...I'm getting 27+ drinks out of that, depending on just how fast she inhaled them, how long before being stopped, etc. Wow. I'm impressed.

Elizabeth Foley
Ass't Crim. D.A.
Galveston County

The highest BAC I've ever seen was a 0.46 while interning in Harris County a long time ago. Amazingly, we didn't have any driving facts -- just speeding.

I had an elderly gentleman who was somewhere around .45 or so. Don't remember exactly as it was a long, long time ago.

What I do remember vividly is the patrol officer's apt description at trial of how the defendant exited his vehicle: "He pretty much just oozed out of the truck onto the ground."

We recently had a dwi with a .42 blood test at 2 p.m. He was fairly coherent and standing; however, he was very drunk! When the officer asking the dwi questions got to "have you been drinking?" The guy looked at him for a while and said "hell yes, how do you think I got this way?"

This was a topic of discussion on the DRE list about a year ago. Several toxicologists reported seeing BAC levels as high as 0.90. Those persons were in comas, but they lived.

I had a defense lawyer call me the other day asking about a copy of a DWI tape. I looked the case up and asked him why he wanted a copy of the tape when the guy blew a 0.37. His reply was "the machine must have malfunctioned because my client was walking around and didn't look that drunk". My reply was "your client is an alcoholic who has a very high tolerance for alcohol". I used to be a intoxilizer operator so I gave him a quick education about "the machine".

I wonder why he hasn't brought me a blank tape to make that copy (grin).

Good grief! The things people do to themselves.

We revoked a guy who got a DWI when he plowed into someone's yard and roughed up their Christmas decorations. His blood test showed a 0.46. His defense attorney pled for mercy noting that his client had "done real well" the last couple of years and that "at least he didn't test positive for any illegal narcotics."