A Drunk Driver's Last Hours

                    by Dahn Alexander Batchelor

This article was published by the Globe and Mail and  syndicated on December  19^th  1986  all over Canada.  It was also put in a text book  on impaired driving.                                             

           
The author of this article is a criminologist and the former Associate Editor of the Canadian Police News. He has investigated hundreds of motor vehicle accidents involving serious injuries and fatalities over a period of five years and he also represented clients  in courts  who were charges with traffic offences for 15 years in 12 cities in the province of Ontario A.s such, he has had first-hand experience into the causes of motor vehicle accidents. 

The following story, (interspersed with statistics and interesting facts about accidents and drunk driving) is about a teenage motorist who had a hidden drinking problem that no-one but a few of his cronies knew anything about. Although the names, places and dates are arbitrarily chosen, this story is a mosaic of typical drunk drivers blended into one and who, because of his inability to comprehend the enormity of his drinking problem, became a typical statistic.   Follow, if you dare, the final hours of Ivan Rubinovich as this article tells you the consequences  of  being  a part-time  drunk  while  being  a  full-time motorist.  If reading this article won't save your life, pass it on to a friend. It might save his or her life.

          

           Ivan Rubinovich was like many teenagers. He dabbled a bit into drugs but decided quite early in his teens that alcohol was cheaper and easier to get. Even when he was in high school, he drank to excess. His parents gave up trying to correct him and accepted him as he was---a teenage drunk.

           His drinking got him in trouble with the law on one occasion. He was clocked at 120 kilometers an hour and when he was stopped, he staggered towards the police officer and was promptly arrested and charged and later convicted of driving over 80. In fact, his reading was very much over 80. It was 150. When he got his license back many months after his conviction, he was determined to drive more carefully so that he wouldn't get stopped again while being impaired.

           Ivan was 18 years of age when he got the job of truck driver for a meat packer in Winnipeg. His job entailed him to make deliveries from Winnipeg through Selkirk and onto Gimli and he had driven the same van for a year without incident.

           For about two hours in the day he didn't have to do anything. In the middle of his first year on the job, he started going to a tavern in Selkirk during those two hours.  He would arrive at two and stay till four. That gave him 20  minutes  to  make  his  last  delivery  stop  in Gimli and by the time he had unloaded his deliveries there,  he was heading back to Winnipeg by 4:30 p.m. and getting there at around 5:30 p.m. in the late afternoon.  Every day he looked forward to his sojourn at his favorite watering hole for it was there that he could be with two of his friends who lived in Selkirk. 

           December 20, 1985 was going to be different than any other day as far as Ivan was concerned except that he hated working Saturdays. This time, he arrived at the tavern at 12:00 noon. He settled down to enjoy the next two hours in the only way he knew how. He ordered a beer.

           Ivan downed the glass of beer in two minutes and ordered another while waiting for his friend who usually showed up about then.  His friend Mike entered the tavern ten minutes after the hour and sat down next to Ivan.

           At this moment, there were  (340 grams) of beer in Ivan's stomach.  If he had got up at this point in time and  driven away in his van, he probably would not have suffered any disability from that one drink. Ivan weighed 68 kilograms pounds and even if he was given a breathalyzer test a half hour later, his blood/alcohol content reading would only be 15 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood.   Put in another way, that is one fifth of a teaspoon of pure alcohol mixed in with his 5.7 liters of blood.

           And yet, 5 % of motorists who drive thirty minutes after having only one glass of beer, or one glass of wine or one shot of 70 proof liquor, are too intoxicated to drive even though they would show no outward sign of intoxication.   These drivers,  as  a  result  of  that   one  drink  alone,  became  over confident, careless and underestimated the road hazards.

           Ivan's second friend, Bill, age 45, came in a few minutes later and his entry initiated Ivan to start on his second glass. By 12:15 p.m, Ivan had downed half of that glass of beer.

            He now had in his stomach 18 ounces  (510 grams) of beer  of which three tenths of a teaspoon (21 grams) of the one and a  half glasses of beer, was pure alcohol.

           The beer in his liver began the process of metabolizing. Part of the alcohol (5%) had previously passed through the walls of his stomach and thereby going directly into his bloodstream, the remainder (95%) passed into his small intestine.  Since Ivan hadn't eaten anything for lunch, his highest BAC level would be reached in 15 minutes.

           If Ivan left the tavern after drinking one and a half glasses  of  beer and  fifteen minutes later was stopped and given a breathalyzer test, his BAC reading would be 30 mg% and the alcohol coursing through his blood stream would be still less than 1 part of pure alcohol per 1000 parts of blood. As many as 10 percent of the motorists stopped are  too intoxicated  to  drive  with  a  reading  of  only  30 mg%.  They  tend  to daydream, are inattentive to traffic signs and lights, are distractive, impulsive and their driving is unpredictable. At least  three percent  of  them   display   outward   signs   of   some   form   of  intoxication.

If Ivan left the tavern after drinking one and a half glasses of  beer and  fifteen minutes later was stopped and given a breathalyzer test, his BAC reading would be 30 mg and the alcohol coursing through his blood stream would be still less than 1 part of pure alcohol per 1000 parts of blood. As many as 10 percent of the motorists stopped are  too intoxicated  to  drive  with  a  reading  of  only  30 mg.  They  tend  to daydream, are inattentive to traffic signs and lights, are distractive, impulsive and their driving is unpredictable. At least  three percent  of  them   display   outward   signs   of   some   form   of  intoxication. 

           It was 12:30 pm when Ivan had completed his second beer. He was beginning to feel that glow that always follows after a few beers. He was more talkative and the problem he had had earlier with his girlfriend was being pushed back into the recesses of his mind.

           By now he had 24 ounces (680 grams) of beer in his stomach which amounted to two-fifths of a teaspoon (28 grams) of pure alcohol in his system. If he was to take a breathalyzer test 15 minutes later,  his BAC reading would be up to 45 mg%.  That is 35 mg% below the legal limit.

           In Canada, twenty percent of drivers stopped with a BAC reading of 45 mg% were too intoxicated to drive. As many as 6 percent showed outward  signs  of  intoxication,  such  tell-tale  signs as--driving unreasonably fast or unreasonably slow, or driving in spurts--slowly, then quickly and then slowly repeatedly.

           Now a word on metabolism.  This is the chemical changes which take place between the moment of entry of a nutrient (such as alcohol) into a living organism (such as Man) and the moment of discharge of its ultimate chemical waste products (such as urine, feces, sweat or breath) into the environment. About 5% of the alcohol entering the stomach is absorbed directly through the stomach walls and into the blood vessels lining the stomach. The rest of the alcohol proceeds down into the small intestine where it is processed more slowly. It takes anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes for a standard glass of an alcoholic beverage to be completely absorbed, both through the blood of the stomach and the small intestine, depending on how much food is in both organs at that time.

           The human body and its weight comprises of 70% water and the water is distributed thusly, 5% in the blood, 15% as interstitial fluid (the fluid that is between the organs and muscles) and 50% comprising of the fluid in the body cells.

           Normally fluid output is directly related to fluid intake. Since the body must constantly lose some of its water, in a 24 hour period, the water escapes the body through the following organs; the kidneys (urination) 1000 ml to 1500 ml; the skin, (perspiration--yes, it's an organ)  450 to 800 ml;  the lungs, (breath) 250 ml to 350 ml., and 100 ml to 150 ml., is removed as feces.

           What this means is that whatever alcohol is ingested into the human body, only about 5% of it in an hour is expelled as urine, feces, perspiration and breath. (More if there is a greater consumption of alcohol in any one given time.)  The remaining 95% of the alcohol remains in the body to be processed.

           The alcohol enters the small intestine and then the liver via the blood and while the blood is forced through the liver, metabolism takes place. Unfortunately, it doesn't initially metabolize very long in the liver as 200 to 300 mililitres are pumped through that organ each minute. The blood, with most of the unmetabolized alcohol continues its journey .through the heart and lungs and then into the brain. About 1.4 litres (or 15% of the total amount of the body's contaminated blood) threads its way through the myriads of blood vessels and capillaries of the brain during that minute  until  every  part  of  the  brain  has  soaked  up  the  alcohol contaminated blood.  Traces of the alcohol will remain in the brain but most of it will return with the blood to the liver for more metabolization. The alcohol-laden blood will circulate through the body about six times each minute and each time it passes through the liver, it is re-metabolized, and when it leaves the liver again, the blood will have .001  less alcohol in it than when it last entered the liver. By the time an hour has elapsed, the contaminated blood will be processed by the liver approximately 360 times until all the alcohol has been detoxified by oxidation and changed into acetic acid (same component that makes vinegar) and made  harmless.

           By 12:45 p.m, Ivan was into his third drink and he had finished it by 1:00 p.m.

           If he had decided to drive 15 minutes later and had been given a breathalyzer test, his BAC levels would be 52  and he would have been given a 12 hour suspension. Had he been driving a motor vehicle with this BAC level, he would have suffered from a loss of judgment, his ability to anticipate  an  accident  would  be  impaired,  he  would  hesitate  when hesitation could result  in  an  accident,  he  would  be  indecisive  in  what  to  do   when  seconds  count  and  finally  what  he  would  do,  would  be unreasonable to a sober motorist. As much as ten percent of motorists who drive in that condition, show outward signs of intoxication. Ivan would have thought that because his BAC readings were under the legal limit of 80 mg%, it was safe for him to drive but in ten years, from 1973 to 1982, as many as 636 motorists in Canada with readings between 50 mg% and 80 mg% thought the same thing. All of them had accidents.  All of them died. 

           At 1:15 p.m., Ivan ordered his fourth round of drink and by 1:30 p.m, he had finished it.

           He had by now, drunk 48 ounces (1.36 litres) of beer. In 15 minutes, his BAC reading would be 116 minus 35 (for the alcohol in his body had metabolized in the hour and a half that had elapsed). This would bring his BAC reading to 81. He could be arrested for driving over the legal limit, although that would not be likely.

           He ordered another beer and had finished his fifth beer by 1:45 p.m.

           He had up to now drunk 60 ounces (1.7 litres) of beer, which 15 minutes later, would have resulted in a BAC reading of 110. The alcohol coursing through his brain would cause substantial impairment in the functioning of the motor areas of his brain. That part of the brain involved in the function of motion, controls such muscles as the lips, face, neck and fingers. It also controls the muscles of the hands, arms and legs.

           At 1:45 p.m., Ivan ordered another drink. When 2:00 p.m, arrived, Ivan had drunk six beers (72 ounces or 2.04 litres). His BAC reading would, in a short time, be 139. By 2:15 p.m, he had downed half of another glass of beer.

           The beer in his liver began the process of metabolizing. Part of the alcohol (5%) had previously passed through the walls of his stomach and thereby going directly into his bloodstream, the remainder (95%) passed into his small intestine.  Since Ivan hadn't eaten anything for lunch, his highest BAC level would be reached in 15 minutes.

           It was 2:30 pm when Ivan had completed his seventh beer. He was beginning to feel that glow that always follows after a few beers. He was more talkative and the problem he had had earlier with his girlfriend was being pushed further back into the recesses of his mind.

           By now he had  (710 grams) of beer in his stomach which amounted to two-fifths of a teaspoon (28 grams) of pure alcohol in his system. If he was to take a breathalyzer test 15 minutes later,  his BAC reading would be up to 45 mg.  That is 35 mg below the legal limit.

           In Canada, twenty percent of drivers stopped with a BAC reading of 45 mg were too intoxicated to drive. As many as 6 percent showed outward  signs  of  intoxication,  such  tell-tale  signs as--driving unreasonably fast or unreasonably slow, or driving in spurts--slowly, then quickly and then slowly repetedly

            By 2:45 p.m, Ivan was into his eighth drink and he had finished it by 3:00 p.m. At 3:15 p.m., Ivan ordered his ninth round of drink and by 3:30 p.m, he had finished it.

           He had by now,drunk 48 ounces (1.36 litres) of beer. In 15 minutes, his BAC reading would be 116 minus 35 (for the alcohol in his body had matabolized in the hour and a half that had elapsed). This would bring his BAC reading to 81. He could be arrested for driving over the legal limit, although that would not be likely.

           He ordered another beer and had finished it by 3:45 p.m.

           He had up to now drunk 60 ounces (1.7 litres) of beer, which 15 minutes later, would have resulted in a BAC reading of 110. The alcohol coursing through his brain would cause substantial impairment in the functioning of the motor areas of his brain. That part of the brain involved in the function of motion, controls such muscles as the lips, face, neck and fingers. It also controls the muscles of the hands, arms and legs.

           At 3:45 p.m., Ivan ordered one more drink. This would be his last drink for he knew that at 4 p.m., he had to leave to finish his deliveries and return to Winnipeg.  By the time 4:00 p.m., arrived, Ivan had drunk eleven beers (2.04 litres). His BAC reading would, in a short time, be 139. He decided that he had enough to drink and was ready to take to the road. Strange as it may appear, he had managed to arrive at the store where he was to  make  his delivery without incident.  (due more to the care of the other drivers than himself) and an hour later, he was on Highway 8 , heading south towards Winnipeg, 55 kilometers away.

             As Ivan sped down the highway at 115 kilometers an hour, (35 over the speed limit) he had difficulty in recognizing and following moving vehicles ahead of him. Simple visual functions are relatively insensitive to the influence of low to moderate blood/alcohol concentrations in the blood, but when those concentrations exceed the BAC levels of 100 mg, the driver suffers from blurred and double vision. Ivan's BAC reading was now 135 mg and subsequently, he had difficulty in seeing properly. Low doses of alcohol can significantly increase reaction time to both visual and auditory stimuli but when the dosage is increased to 50 mg, the reaction time is impaired. The higher the BAC reading, the greater the impairment.

             Both speed and accuracy are important components to driving and often at slower speeds, one can be maintained for a short time, at the expense of the other. However, as the speed increases, so must the accuracy of the driver as the driving demands become more complex. The alcohol effects become more pronounced until the driver is no longer in control.

            Ivan was no longer in control. The engine responded to the pressure of his foot, the front wheels responded to the actions of his hands but he was not really in control of the vehicle that was carrying him down the highway at 115 kilometers an hour.

             As he raced down the highway, swerving in and out of the traffic, the other motorists saw him for what he was--a drunk driver.   But Ivan didn't see himself as such.   He felt that he had control and knew what he was doing and that was all that was needed to get him to his employer's meat plant in Winnipeg. He couldn't understand why those around him were blowing their horns and flashing their lights at him.

             As he continued  barreling down the highway, he became more aware of the fact that his eyes were beginning to sag. Fatigue was taking over, a common characteristic of driving with a BAC reading of over 80 mg.

             Suddenly, without warning, large snowflakes began blowing against the windshield of his van and as a result, he had difficulty seeing through it. The road became slippery as the wheels kept losing their traction on the freshly fallen snow.

             He peered through the brief openings afforded to him by his overworked wipers and as he peered through the brief openings, it became more apparent by the second that there was a big transport truck heading towards him in his lane. The truck's headlights began flashing on and off.

             "Get back into your own damn lane." cried out Ivan in the ridiculous hope that the driver of the transport would hear him. He couldn't understand why the transport driver was driving in his lane and not his own.           To Ivan's right, was a pickup so he knew that he couldn't swerve to his right to avoid hitting the oncoming transport. There was only one thing he could do. He would have to swerve to his left and cross the double centre lines and cut around the transport coming down on him. But alas, the center lines were not to his left--they were to his right. The transport was not in the southbound passing lane which led to Winnipeg but in the northbound passing lane which led to Gimli. Somewhere along that route, Ivan had crossed the centre lines and was now heading southbound on the wrong side of the highway.

             The peripheral vision of motorists is affected proportionally to the amount of alcohol in the system. The greater the amount of alcohol in the system, the more tunnel-like is the vision. When a person occupies the central visual field with another task, the alcohol produces a progressive decline in the ability to see out of the corner of one's eyes. The magnitude of this effect increases from a six percent deficit at very low BACs of 20 mg  to  twenty  percent  at  moderate  concentrations  of  50 mg - 80 mg. There is a further reduction at a BAC of 100 mg and an enormous reduction  of  over  fifty  percent  of  the  peripheral  vision  when  the blood/alcohol concentration is as high as 120 mg.  In other words, it is very easy for a motorist to cross over lines because he cannot see the other lines on either side of him to keep him in the centre of his own lane.

             The human eye can focus on a new object approximately once a second over an extended period of time and twice a second for a short period of time. But the effects of alcohol upon the brain creates an impairment in the response time and the accommodation of the eye and with a BAC of just 60 mg at a speed of 100 k/h, a driver would go 6 meters  before the brain would react to the message from the eyes.

             Ivan turned his wheel sharply to his left when he was five meters from the transport ahead of him. He could hear the blare of the transport's horn blasting in his ears as it shot past

his right side. He instinctively turned his head to the right to see the monster transport fly past him but his hands on the wheel kept turning to his left.

             When his van was in the westbound curb lane, he turned his head to his left, just in time to see a ten-year-old boy pedaling his bicycle on the shoulder of the highway.

             Seeing an object in time and reacting to it in time are two different things. There was no time in which he could react. The alcohol had dulled his reaction time and because his motor reflexes were not up to par either, he hadn't at this moment, attempted to apply his brakes.

             The kinetic weight of the van at the speed of 115 kilometers an hour was 27,216 kilograms or slightly over 26 metric tonnes.

             The boy had one second left in his life. He might have been vaguely aware of his impending death but he certainly wouldn't have felt any pain for his death was instantaneous.

       His body flew through the windshield of the van and crashed into the back of the passenger seat, a crumpled and bloodied lifeless form.

             Ivan's mind had received the message of his eyes that the boy and his bicycle were in front of him but by the time he had swung the steering wheel sharply to his right to avoid hitting the boy, the boy's lifeless body had already smashed through the windshield of the van and was lying dead on the seat beside him.

             Even moderate doses of alcohol will prolong the reaction time to visual or auditory stimuli. This is an important factor when driving a car, since the addition of a fraction of a second in the reaction time may make a difference in the distance traveled before the brakes are applied.

             Ivan heard the horn before he saw its source.   As he had swung the van back onto the westbound curb lane, he saw death in the form of a 30 tonne transport truck approaching him at 90  kilometers  an  hour.  His van had slowed some by virtue of the friction of its wheels turning on the shoulder but not by much. He was moving at 110 kilometers an hour. The combined speed of the two vehicles racing towards each other was 200 kilometers an hour. The transport was moving at a speed of 25 meters a second. The van was moving at a speed of 30.5 meters a second. The two vehicles were approaching each other at a combined speed of 55.5 meters a second. The kinetic weight of the transport rushing towards him was 600 tonnes. The inevitable mpact against his body would be no different than if he had done a belly flop from the top of a sixty-story building. 

             In one quarter of a second, the two vehicles collided into one another. The impact was heard more than two kilometers away. What followed, took less than a second to occur.

             The bumper of the Mack conventional transport (engine ahead of the cab instead of under it) smashed into the bumper of Ivan's van, shoving it backwards. The front of his van had stopped while the rear of the van continued to move forward at 30.5 meters a second. He wasn't buckled in so his 68 kilogram frame with a kinetic weight of 1360 kilograms,  rose  from the seat as it headed towards the windshield.

             Ivan's legs, ramrod straight, snapped at the knee joints. His hands pressing  on the steering wheel, began to bend the steel and plastic frame downwards. The van was an old one that didn't have a collapsible steering column. The van's engine, sheared from the bolts connecting it to the frame,  moved back 81 centimeters.

              Even though the rear of the van was only now traveling at 60 kilometers an hour, Ivan continued to move forward at the same speed as the inert body of the boy beside him--at 110 kilometers an hour. The dead boy's body went back through the broken windshield of the van from whence it came and slammed against the grill of the Mack truck. Ivan's death grip, clenched around the steering wheel, bent the rim to an almost vertical position. He was 15 centimeters off of the seat and hunched over the steering column.

             A half second after the initial impact, he was impaled onto the steering column, the shaft crushing through his breastbone and tearing through the inner surfaces of his lungs, causing him a brief moment of excruciating  pain. The remaining air in his lungs was expelled along with a profusion of blood. He gasped for air but it was for nought.

              A millisecond later, Ivan's heart burst from the weight of his body as he was impaled onto the steering column. This stopped the pumping of his heart immediately.  His alcohol-laden blood that had been coursing through his arteries leading to his brain, also came to a complete stop. Although his brain would retain a faint spark of life for a few seconds more,  his life had now come to an irreversible end.  Goodbye Ivan.

             His face met the grill of the transport head on. The back of his brain tore away from the back of his skull while the frontal lobes were crushed against inside of the front part of his skull. 

             The van's chassis began bending in the middle as the body bolts were sheared off. The rear end of the van was lifted a meter off of the ground with its wheels spinning wildly despite the severed connections that had originally coupled it to the engine. A fraction of a second later, the rear of the van fell to the ground.

             Five seconds after the impact, both vehicles were at a complete stop, 100 meters south of the point of impact. The transport was badly damaged and the van was completely demolished.

             The two deaths didn't go entirely unnoticed. Ivan and Tommy are now part of the fatality statistics of Canada.

             Approximately a quarter of a million people die around the world every year as a result of motor vehicle accidents. Approximately fifty percent have been caused by drunk drivers. 

             The one thing Ivan feared more than anything else, was getting pulled over by a cop while driving while impaired. He knew that his chances of getting caught were slim. He had read somewhere that a  driver would probably drive  2000 times while impaired before he would eventually be pulled over. He figured that the odds were in his favour. If on December 19, 1986,  the odds had been in his favour, he would have been pulled over. He would have been arrested, charged, convicted and sent  to jail. But,  he  would  be  alive  today and  so  would  little 

             Tommy  Roberts,  the ten-year-old boy who was riding home with a birthday present for his mother. A boy, whose music teacher said he had the makings of a great pianist and possibly a composer. A boy who promised his father that he would only ride his bicycle on the shoulder of the highway where it is safe--a boy who is now only a statistic and a memory.   Goodbye Tommy.                     Author's comments:  The author wishes his readers to take note that the blood/alcohol concentrations (BAC) stated in this story applied only to the character in this story and do not necessarily apply to everyone since there are other factors such as food intake and body weight that must be taken into account before determining the blood/alcohol concentration levels of persons who drink and drive.