[DisabledinFla]

I got into a car accident (never had a ticket before) the officer said I reeked of alcohol which was completely untrue. He was very abusive and transported me to the hospital and had them draw my blood. The results came back .143 I don't understand how this is possible. I'm disabled cannot afford an attorney and I've heard nothing good about public defenders so I figured I should do as much investigating as I can. I also don't understand why the hospital would put my weight 35lbs less than what I weigh and have my height at 5ft 7inches when I'm 5ft 3. I was born at that hospital and was just there in their ER a month prior (they wrote down my correct weight then). All of this is very confusing. It happened the day before Thanksgiving, and the 2 people I spent the morning with (this happened at 4pm) signed statements as to what we did, I got in the accident after leaving their house. Can anyone explain in layman terms the formula the hospital uses to determine your Blood Alcohol Level and what might have occurred to cause the incorrect reading.
Thank You 

[Archer]

First of all I am sorry to hear about your predicament.

Did they supply any units with your reading? This is very important as some countries have different ways of reporting Blood Alcohol.

The chances are that the alcohol was determined by headspace gas chromatography.

You are entitled to ask to see copies of all certificates and all of the quality control data (calibrations, controls etc.)

If this was carried out by head space then it is best practice to use two different columns to eliminate any possibility of erroneous results from other materials in the blood.

[kriggy]

Well they dont use any formula they use gas chromatography which can determine the amount of ethanol in your blood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromatography
The result might come from many things like swaping your blood sample with someone else´s, wrong work by the technician at hospital or maybe you used mouthwash or something similar what contains alcohol or many other things.
Im not expert on this but I heard that they should have your blood sample at hospital so it might be possible to re-do that analysis because amount of sample needed is pretty low (sub ml amounts)
And you should get an attorney, even the public one.

[Archer]

Im not expert on this but I heard that they should have your blood sample at hospital so it might be possible to re-do that analysis because amount of sample needed is pretty low (sub ml amounts)
And you should get an attorney, even the public one.

I am an expert in this, they should have taken two samples, one of which would have been analysed and the other sealed and stored on your behalf, should you wish to dispute the results it can be sent to an independent laboratory.

If there is no second sample then the question of professional competence can be exploited.

Do you ever drink alcohol?

[DisabledinFla]

Dear Archer,
 I don't understand what you mean by any units? It states the date, time, and the name of the nurse who did the test but not the amount collected.
From what I've been reading about here in Brevard County Florida, hospitals use plasma not whole blood and not a gas chromatography. 
It also has a POCT Glucose Meter
It has a reference range of 65-115 mg/dl and mine read 106 (Again I do not know what it means)
When the called the hospital to ask them if they took 2 samples like the DOT is required they said I would have to subpoena those records and wouldn't answer any of my questions.
My Public Defender still hasn't returned my calls.

[DisabledinFla]

Does anyone know how long (in minutes) it would take to test my blood with a Gas chromatography?
If the ER did not test it with the Gas chromatography what method would they use?
(Below is something I read about Florida Blood Testing in DUI cases)
In most hospitals, alternative testing methods are often utilized, because they are FASTER.  Time is money in a hospital.  Plus, emergency situations call for quicker testing methods than the laborious process of setting up a proper GC or GC-MS test.  One major difference in most hospital tests is that these are often done on blood serum, not the “whole” blood. 
Any help anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated, I'm 45 and this is my first ticket and I don't drink. I'm in a nightmare and I'm trying to figure out how this can happen.

[Babcock_Hall]

I just returned a book to the library that had a long chapter on this subject earlier today.  It was the second edition of the Drug Abuse Handbook, edited by Steven Karch.  A friend of mine indicated that occasionally acetone can be mistaken for ethanol.  Are you diabetic by any chance?

[Corribus]

Some medications can also lead to false positives. 0.145 is really high. Your defense lawyer will go through all this.

[DisabledinFla]

I know .143 is extremely high. I take Neurontin, I was wondering if that could have caused bad reading but I also read the nurse was not suppose to use alcohol swabs to sterilize the area but she did. I'm not a diabetic but I have RA, fibromyalgia, an artificial knee (I've had replaced twice), a rebuilt shoulder with 3 pins, bulging discs in my lower back, gout, and a small assortment of other ailments. This is perplexing and I have so much at stake.  Thank you for your help.

[Archer]

OK so first priority is for you to politely request to see copies of the certificates produced, including calibration checks and duplicate analysis of the sample.

Secondly you need to see copies of the calibration and service records of all instrumentation used in the analysis. This includes the actual instrument used to determine the provided value and any balances and volumetric equipment (pipettes etc).

You also need to see assurances that any reference materials, internal standards and calibration standards were not out of date, were free from contamination and were supplied by a certified manufacturer.

Thirdly you need too ask to see up to date training records for every person involved in the sample handling, from start to finish (including the nurse who took the original sample through to the instrument operator and the person who validates the results).

If you ask for these things in a calm and polite manner (in writing, hand delivered) then it will show that you are not naive and that you are questionining the competence of the laboratory's quality scheme in a polite and non-confrontational way. Should they refuse any of this then your public defender will be able to ask why this information was not made available.

I have done some reading around US law and the value of 0.143 provided to you is in %m/v (mass of alcohol (in grams) per unit volume of blood (in millilitres).

The UK drink driving limit is 80 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood, this is equal to 0.08% mass ethanol/volume blood of alcohol in the United States.

you have been provided with a value of 0.143% ethanol in your blood.

The instrumental run time for blood alcohol is around 4 minutes depending on the method used. The major time factor is calibration of the instrument to assure that the given value is correct.

This is the most commonly used instrument is head space gas chromatography (there are other providers which do the same thing, this is an example of one manufacturer) http://www.chem.agilent.com/Library/flyers/Public/AAK%20Blood%20Alcohol%20flyer.pdf

As far as you are aware you did not consume any alcohol prior to the accident or prior to the blood sample being taken, is this correct? No chance that your drinks were spiked?

Using the GC-Headspace method, with dual columns there is practically no posibility of false positives. If you have been taking medcines which contain ethanol then this may have contributed to the result but you would have needed to have consumed rather a lot.

You have stated your height at 5ft 3in, 1.6m tall.

I am afraid I have to estimate your weight as a medium build being 130lb so that's 59kg (please correct this where appropriate)

Given these values you would have needed to consume 52.3 grams of alcohol which is the equivalent to 66.3 millilitres of pure alcohol or 168 millilitres of 40% ABV spirit, 500 ml of 13% ABV wine or 1.3 lt of 5% beer to have a blood alcohol at 0.143% (these values have been rounded for simplicity and do not take into account alcohol elimination over time).

You have clearly stated that you don't drink so the only way that any instrumrntation could detect alcohol in the specimine provided would be (a) it was deliberately put there, which is unlikely, or (b) two sample have been inadvertently mixed up.

This can happen, we are all only human. Therefore you will need to request analysis of the second sample (not the original sample) at an alternative, accredited, laboraory

The alcohol swab may skew the results slighly but if they took a 10 ml sample then 1.47 mg of ethanol would have had to be drawn up into the needle, this is quite a significant volume from a swab considering the diameter of the needle. I don't know if this would give such a high false positive reading.

I hope this helps.

[Babcock_Hall]

I strongly support what Archer is saying.  Forensic labs can and do make mistakes (see the Patricia Stallings supposed case of ethylene glycol poisoning as an example).  All that I would like to add is that you may want to find an analytical or clinical chemist in your area who would be willing to act as a consultant.  Your public defender may need some help to sort through this.

[Corribus]

You also have a legal problem in that the arresting officer claimed he smelled alcohol on you. All the science in the world isn't going to make that go away.

(BTW, Nice post, Archer)