For those of you who missed last week's column this column is my continuing story of my overnight ride along in Sergeant McGrath’s police cruiser.  I was riding the graveyard shift from 11 p.m. to about 7 a.m. on a Saturday night to see what really happens on the streets of our city.

3 a.m. is the power that bars are required to close and we expected that there would be some excitement on a Saturday night. 

At 3:10 a.m. the call came in that a drunk driver had hit a tree and that there were probably some injuries and police intervention was required.  Although one of his constables cars was already headed for the scene we flicked on our lights and headed for the accident site at a rapid yet safe speed just around the top end of the speed limit. 

Although police cars are technically allowed to drive faster than the speed limit and go through red lights and stop signs if their siren and lights are on, this power is reserved for real emergencies.  Since there was already a squad car on the way we did not have to break any records getting to the scene.

As we were driving the last few blocks we noticed that we were following an ambulance that seemed to be headed in the same direction.  When we arrived we found that the ambulance, a police car, and a fire engine had recently pulled up in response to the 911 call.

We immediately noticed a car parked parallel in someone's driveway.  The car had obviously rolled several times and the rear inside windows had all been blown out.  The roof was half crushed.  The ambulance technicians were helping a young man with blood streaming down his face into the ambulance.

Another young man, the driver, was being questioned by the police.  He was asked if he had anything to drink that evening although the smell of alcohol was clearly evident.  He said he just had a beer or two.  He was asked to blow into the portable breathalyzer unit and was told that if he failed he would be arrested.  He was polite and seemed reasonably alert and agreed to blow into the machine.  The fail light lit up and he was told to put his hands on top of the police car so that he could be frisked and then handcuffed.

 A portable breathalyzer unit is set to give a fail reading when the blood alcohol content is anything over 1.0.  The legal limit of blood alcohol content is .08.  Since the portable unit is not as accurate as the big machine at the detention center it is set a little higher so as to be sure that if you fail you are definitely over .08.  This reading cannot be used in court and only the readings of the approved breathalyzer device at the detention centers will be used to determine what charges will be laid.

As the crime scene was secured the story came out that there were 4 young people in their early twenties in the car. They had all been in a bar that evening and were all drunk.  The driver possessed a probationary license and was not legally allowed to have a single drop of alcohol and his bloodstream if he was going to get behind the wheel of a car.

He was driving down a snowy slightly icy road at a speed that was much too fast for the car and his inebriated state.  He lost control and the car zoomed up a snow bank, flipped over and smashed into the snow and then rolled a few more times before ending up on its wheels.  Two of the occupants were seriously injured and the driver and one other escaped without a scratch.  If they had done the same flip and roll on concrete instead of snow all four would likely be dead.

The 2 injured were immediately dispatched by two ambulances to the closest trauma center accompanied by one of the squad cars.  We were required to stay at the scene to find out what the prognosis would be for the injured men.  If there was a death caused by this drunk driver he would be charged with the criminal code offense of driving impaired causing death.  The accident investigation team and the coroner would have to be called out to review the crime scene.

Fortunately we received word that both survived.  The driver blew 1.37 and 1.33 on the approved breathalyzer in the detention center and was charged with drinking and driving causing injury and is facing time in jail resulting from his drinking night out with the boys.

In addition to the serious injuries he inflicted on his friends, he demolished his car and tied up the civic resources of 3 police cars, 2 ambulances, 1 fire truck, 4 ambulance technicians, 3 firemen, 1 police supervisor, all because he decided to toss back a few and then get behind the wheel of his car.  I hope he goes to jail for a very long time.