Fort Jackson, SC (WLTX) -- People were drinking alcohol at 9 a.m. on Fort Jackson. It wasn't a party, but instead for training.
Donald, a volunteer for training at the miliary base, had four drinks over a three-hour period. He is six feet tall and weighs 195 pounds.
"Feeling the way I am, many would get behind the wheel," he said. "Just calm, relaxed."
Next door, Spc. James Mitchell learned what to look for if he had just pulled Donald over.
"Uneven eye movement, just not being balanced, not being able to count, just simple stuff that someone who is not under the influence of alcohol can do," Mitchell said.
The typical blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) of a driver who receives a DUI is between 0.15 and 0.17, but since the legal limit is 0.08, the training challenges officers to look for clues right around that mark.
With careful measuring of the alcohol, trainers put Donald's BAC just above the legal limit. However, the officers who saw him did not know how much he had to drink.
The clues of intoxication can be minute, like the small jerking eye movement that comes when a person has been drinking.
Wayne Harris with the Criminal Justice Academy says officers need to learn how to identify the small signs.
"Their ocular muscles, which gives away horizontal gaze and stagnas, so they actually see that the test really does work," he said.
The eye test is one of the three standard tests the officers learn.
"Two divided attention tests: one is called the 'Walk and Turn,' the other is called the 'One Leg Stand,'" Harris said.
Harris says conducting a test on a person who is reasonably coherent makes for better training.
"It doesn't take a great deal of expertise to see somebody fall out of a car who can't stand, and a lot of times, juries are looking for that kind of behavior. What we're trying to do is bring our volunteer drinkers up to the 0.07, perhaps up to the 0.12 level, where they act reasonably coherent. They've got a decent balance, but a trained officer can determine whether or not they are impaired."
At the end of the four-day training, officers like Mitchell should be better equipped.
"This gives more skills to get them off the road and make sure people don't get hurt," Mitchell said.
11/4/2009 5:46:09 PM
