Checking in with the latest DUI mishaps that take place behind the wheel always seems to yield strange and perplexing results. This week is proving to offer the same, as several stories, one out of New Hampshire, one out of upstate New York, and a third from California, prove that anything is possible when it comes to driving under the influence.
In Rochester, New Hampshire, a man was charged with DWI after being stopped on South Main Street in town. It wasn’t hard to spot the suspected offender: the DUI suspect’s car was trailing part of the nozzle and hose of a gasoline pump from its tank.
Sgt. Stephen Burke was cruising around on patrol when he saw Robert Ross’ 1994 Pontiac Grand Am dragging the broken apparatus behind it, according to Foster’s Daily Democrat.
Sgt. Burke pulled Ross over in a pharmacy parking lot, where he was subsequently arrested for driving while intoxicated, habitual offender, and criminal mischief due to the damage to the gas pump.
The pump, it turned out, came from a nearby BP gas station. Ross had apparently simply driven off with the pump still in the tank, and had made it about 200 yards before he was stopped by police.
Officers couldn’t say whether Ross took a field sobriety test. He either took it and failed, or refused to and was still arrested because police suspected him of being intoxicated.
In upstate New York, near Albany, police say that a man was driving the wrong way down the road and under the influence of alcohol when he collided with a tractor-trailer.
George A. Vorsheim, the alleged DUI driver, managed to walk away from the accident unhurt, amazingly. His blood-alcohol content was allegedly more than three times the legal limit to drive at .26 percent, according to the Albany Times-Union. Fortunately the tractor-trailer driver was not hurt either.
Two lanes of the road were closed as the scene was cleaned up.
In a more positive story, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputy Aleksandra Kuna was presented the Thin Blue Line award in Palo Alto, California, for saving the life of a good Samaritan who had stopped to help those at the scene of a car collision.
Kuna had grabbed the good Samaritan from the path of an oncoming vehicle, saving the man as the vehicle crashed into the stopped cars, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The driver of that vehicle is now under suspicion for drunk driving.
The Thin Blue Line Award, presented by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, goes to those in law enforcement who save the lives of people threatened by those suspected of driving under the influence.
