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When a woman from upstate New York got pulled over for drunk driving, she had an excuse that caused cops to questions whether or not she was joking.
When she was pulled over and given a breathalyzer test, her blood alcohol content was over four times more than the legal limit. But strangely, the woman didn’t appear affected at all.
In fact, when asked, she said she consumed “four drinks between noon and 6 p.m.,” according to her lawyer, Joseph Marusak. She had less than one drink an hour.
“We hired a local pharmacologist who said that a woman of her size and weight having four drinks in that period of time should be between 0.01 and 0.05 blood alcohol levels,” said Marusak. The limit in New York state is 0.08 BAC.
She got a flat tire on her drive home, and a driver called it in as an accident.
“If she hadn’t had a flat tire, she’d not know to this day that she has this condition,” says Marusak.
She blew a BAC level of nearly 0.40, so she was taken to the hospital. While there, her husband asked to have tests run.
“Without any drinks, her blod level was over double the legal limit at 9:15 a.m., triple the limit at 6 p.m., and more than four times the legal limit at 8:30 p.m., which correlates with the same time of day that the police pulled her over,” said Marusak.
What’s stranger, the woman didn’t even feel the effects of alcohol until her BAC was between 0.30 and 0.40, probably because her body has adapted by now to the high BAC levels.
It’s called gut-fermentation syndrome, or auto-brewery syndrome, and it happens when gastrointestinal yeast takes normal food carbohydrates and turns them into ethanol in the bowel. Cases have been reported since 1912.
The woman had her DUI charges dismissed, though her lawyer says he thinks their fight isn’t quite over. In the meantime, the woman is taking anti-fungal medications, and is eating a no-sugar, no-alcohol, low carb diet.
