Drew Woodall Greene, of Westminster, South Carolina was arrested and charged with two counts of felony DUI after he failed to obey a traffic signal and crashed into another vehicle going about 72 mph. The crash led to the deaths of two people.
Although Greene was not immediately tested for alcohol, law enforcement at the scene smelled alcohol and noticed several empty beer cans in his truck. Law enforcement also said that Greene appeared to be incoherent and disoriented.
Both at the scene of the accident and in subsequent interviews, Greene could not recall the incident.
I don’t say this very often, but this might be one of the few times where officers actually had the probable cause to arrest a person on suspicion of driving under the influence.
However, on November 7th, the toxicology report was release and, low and behold, Greene’s blood alcohol content level at the time of the accident was a 0.0 percent. It was also determined that Greene had no drugs in his system.
So what led to the drunk-like symptoms that caused the fatal crash?
Hospital records indicated that Greene suffered from lactic acidosis, a condition which causes dangerous increases in lactic acid levels in the bloodstream. In fact, at the time of the crash, Greene’s lactic acid levels were so high that symptoms of disorientation, confusion, loss of consciousness, and seizures were likely to occur.
Following the release of the toxicology report, prosecutors had no choice but to drop the felony DUI charges against Greene.
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