Toxicology results suggest that many people arrested for intoxication have a BAC in the range of .15 to .30—well over the legal limit, with the latter number approaching potentially lethal levels. Some accounts actually suggest that the highest BAC ever recorded in the United States was in 1982, when an unidentified 24-year-old woman staggered into UCLA Hospital. A blood test showed her BAC was approximately 1.33% at the time of her admission. For perspective, that's almost 17 times the legal limit, and almost four times what is generally considered to be a lethal quantity of alcohol.
Leaving aside such rare instances of superhuman intake, though, people still manage to achieve reckless and surprising levels of drunkenness. Grossman Law has worked on more dram shop cases than any other firm in Texas, and even we occasionally raise an eyebrow at the BAC indicated by police reports. One such instance, and the reason this came to mind, occurred recently in Houston on Saturday, January 28.
Intoxication Crash in Harris County
As I recently wrote, Harris County has a very high intoxication crash rate for a series of reasons. Another incident joined the others on the 28th near the Eastex Freeway, when according to reports a male driver in a white Dodge Ram pickup truck, 32-year-old Ryan McLaughlin, ran a red light on the southbound feeder road at its intersection with Aldine Mail Route Road.
While running the light, McLaughlin's pickup smashed into the passenger side of a westbound Chevy Trailblazer on Aldine Mail Route Road. The female passenger in the t-boned SUV, Zulema Gonzalez, was killed by the impact; its unnamed driver and McLaughlin were taken to the hospital in serious condition. McLaughlin was tested for alcohol by Harris County deputies; the test results showed a .32 BAC—four times the legal limit of intoxication. He was also found to have two previous DWI charges, escalating the charges to felony murder per Texas law.
How Drunk is a .32 BAC?
In and of itself, ".32 BAC" doesn't really convey the scale of intoxication involved. Even noting that the figure is quadruple the maximum legal level of intoxication just confirms that it's illegal, but doesn't exactly clarify the danger of being that drunk on the road. To lend it some clearer perspective, consider a grim example from the recent past: Ethan Couch, the young man infamous for using an "affluenza" defense at trial, plowed his truck into a group of people assisting with a disabled SUV. The crash killed four people and injured a total of nine others. Couch was tested for intoxication shortly after being taken into custody, and his BAC was determined to be approximately .24—three times the legal limit permitted for adult drivers under Texas law.
The drunk driver in Houston exceeded Couch's level of intoxication by an entire multiplicative degree with respect to the legal threshold of .08. By .32, a driver is hovering near to complete loss of consciousness, or even fatality. Look at this chart created by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC):
Ryan McLaughlin's height and weight weren't disclosed with his name, but he would have had to consume a lot of alcohol in a fairly narrow window to achieve a .32 BAC. Per the numbers cited on the chart, for example, a 160-pound man of average health would have to consume roughly 15 drinks in an hour to get that drunk. Even if he happened to be heavier, steady drinking over an evening would produce a similar result. His personal dimensions aside, though, he would have exhibited signs of intoxication long before he reached .32 BAC. Even if the drinking was stretched over a longer interval, an entire hour of non-consumption only lowers a party's BAC by about .015, so a few hours of slightly-more-moderate intake would still yield a very intoxicated motorist.
As I noted, we at the firm are no strangers to dram shop law, and we've regrettably seen our share of drunk drivers. With that said, only a handful of the hundreds we have worked have had BAC of this magnitude. While over-serving is against the law no matter the degree to which it is done, continuing to serve a patron to the excessive degree required for a .32 BAC would constitute serious negligence by a bar's staff.
If .08 is where a bar should stop serving a customer under the law, and .16 is where it's hard not to notice that a person is drunk, a bar that serves someone until they're a .32 is blatantly flouting the law. It's not serving someone until they're drunk; it's serving him until they've had enough to get four people drunk.
Ryan McLaughlin might have been drinking at home or at a friend's (it might explain how he managed to get so thoroughly drunk without any apparent oversight), but that doesn't seem likely. News releases weren't specific about the time of the collision, but said it occurred "overnight" and "on Saturday morning," suggesting that it most likely happened in the wee hours on the 28th. That's a common window of time for bar patrons to head home after an evening of drinking. Add that the crash occurred overnight as the weekend began, and we logically guess that McLaughlin was leaving a bar when he killed Zulema Gonzalez and injured her companion.
Dram Shop Law Does Not Excuse Drunk Driving
If a bar over-served Ryan McLaughlin, it should be held responsible for its role in helping him get so polluted. I stand by that idea. Had appropriate restraint (the kind required by law) been exercised by the bar staff, a terrible incident might have been avoided. Lives were lost that didn't have to be, and I certainly feel some kind of way about that.
However, McLaughlin himself cannot be overlooked in terms of blame. He still made choices that brought more drinks to his table, and even if someone else ordered them he chose to pour them down his gullet. With two prior DWIs, he even had the benefit of experience to teach him that the path he trod didn't lead anywhere good. Since this is his third similar offense, Texas courts will try McLaughlin on murder charges rather than DWI. I hope justice will be done, for Zulema Gonzalez and for everyone.