A Drunk Driver's Last Hours
by Dahn Alexander Batchelor
This article was published by the Globe and Mail and syndicated on December 19th 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.
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