State Police Fatal Accident Unit Releases Findings on Drag Strip Crash that Claimed L

[SC183]

To simplify it we burn Methanol and we drink ethanol.

[mcaruso]

Originally Posted by SC183

Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug, best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages and in thermometers. In common usage, it is often referred to simply as alcohol.
Ethanol is abbreviated as EtOH, using the common organic chemistry notation of representing the ethyl group (C2H5) with Et. This designation is used both by EMS and Hospital ER staff when describing alcohol intoxication, and is found in most chemistry textbooks as well.

Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, carbinol, wood alcohol, wood naphtha or wood spirits, is a chemical compound with chemical formula CH3OH (often abbreviated MeOH).
Methanol is often called wood alcohol because it was once produced chiefly as a byproduct of the destructive distillation of wood. It is now produced synthetically by a multi-step process: natural gas or coal gas and steam are reformed in a furnace to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide; then, hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases react under pressure in the presence of a catalyst.
Because of its poisonous properties, methanol is frequently used as a denaturant additive for ethanol manufactured for industrial uses— this addition of a poison economically exempts industrial ethanol from the rather significant 'liquor' taxes that would otherwise be levied as it is the essence of all potable alcoholic beverages

....I think I need a drink after reading this.

[SC183]

Although now we mix ethanol with gasoline to make E85,so I wonder when the government will start charging the liquor tax on E85.

I thought mouth wash would also give you a false reading for alchol.

[Eric Merryfield]

Originally Posted by diceman1530

I thought mouth wash would also give you a false reading for alchol.

I sure hope they are careful with the info. Some medicines can make you have false positives....

[H.A.A.C. Racing]

This may sound stupid, but what about mouth wash, cough meds., anything stupid like that? I know around here(Conn.) The joke is if you were to go through a D.U.I. stop and you just used mouthwash, you would fail the breath test. (not bad breath, drunk breath). I hope before the media gets this one and drags Scott's name through the mud, there is some kind of investigation as to what it exactly is!

[Rob Petrie E395]

when this all came out a couple of weeks ago on dragracing online I asked my sister in law about this. She works for the state of Virginia crime lab and regularlly testifies in both drug and alcohol DUI cases. Basiclly what I understand now is if we have alcohol in our bodies when we die it turns into a ethanol type substance and by doing blood work and calculating the amounts of it in your blood they can determine how much you may have had to drink or what your blood alchol level might have been at the time of death. She went on to say as a example that if a cdl licened person such as myself were to go out and drink heavily the night before work and get in a truck wreck early the next morning it is likely I would show this kind of stuff in my system and If I survived the accident I would lose my cdl license in most states. My understanding is that while you may not appear or act drunk all of the effects even the next day are not completely out of your system. She tried to go on about a bunch of other stuff relating to how the body breaks down alcohol but to be honest alot of it was scientific crap that was way over my head and I would have trouble explaining it or I would.

[Ruth]

Originally Posted by Rob Petrie E395

when this all came out a couple of weeks ago on dragracing online I asked my sister in law about this. She works for the state of Virginia crime lab and regularlly testifies in both drug and alcohol DUI cases. Basiclly what I understand now is if we have alcohol in our bodies when we die it turns into a ethanol type substance and by doing blood work and calculating the amounts of it in your blood they can determine how much you may have had to drink or what your blood alchol level might have been at the time of death. She went on to say as a example that if a cdl licened person such as myself were to go out and drink heavily the night before work and get in a truck wreck early the next morning it is likely I would show this kind of stuff in my system and If I survived the accident I would lose my cdl license in most states. My understanding is that while you may not appear or act drunk all of the effects even the next day are not completely out of your system. She tried to go on about a bunch of other stuff relating to how the body breaks down alcohol but to be honest alot of it was scientific crap that was way over my head and I would have trouble explaining it or I would.

For conversation purposes I’ll agree with your sister in-law.
However the higher the level of trauma….the higher the natural alcohol (Ethanol) level will be and can make it difficult to make and accurate assessment and that is what it makes it hard to prove in legal cases where the levels are tested post mortem.

I think most will agree that the level of trauma in this case is off the charts.

[Rob Petrie E395]

called sister in law again. How they find out if the ethanol in a dead persons blood is from alcohol or from the bactiera in your blood breaking down after death is they take a sample of your eye fluid. Appearently the same things that happen with your blood do not happen the same with ocular (might be spelled wrong) fluid and therefore they can tell from that. The other key thing in Scotts deal is that they knew the exact time almost to the second of death so that makes it easier to calculate weather it is the alcohol or just the natural things that go on in the body after death because they know from extensive research how long it takes the bacteria in the blood to break down and make ethanol. Again she went into a bunch of scientific stuff she said there are sites on the net that go into this in detail look for a site about autopsies. I asked about the mouth wash deal too. She said she has testified in thousands of cases and has yet to see anyone conviced of dui because of good hygene. She said that yes if you used some mouth wash and then blew in a brethalizer right away you might get a reading it depends on the alcohol content of the mouth wash some nowdays dont have any. The reason you would not be convicted is because when you get a DUI they make you sit at the station for twenty minutes without belching burping ect. if you do the 20 minutes start over this is to make sure any alcohol in your mouth is gone and does not interfere with the 2nd breathalizer test at the police station. In VA both readings are admissable in court and if you jack around and try to keep burping and belching to get out of the test you dont get the second test and are usually convicted on the first test. Another thing about mouth wash is using a normal dose as directed what little alcohol is in it evaporates quickly during normal breathing unless you swallow it and even then there would not be enoughf to get a bac of .02 so his good hygene does not appear to have caused the reading unless he was chugging mouthwash during the day. I also asked about what would happen if you went out and got stinking drunk the night before. The body is capable of reducing the Blood Alcohol content between .01 and .02 per hour depending on liver function and some other factors therefore if at midnight you had a bac of .20 it would take at least 10 hours to get it all out of your system. She said that unfortunetly my hero had some alcohol in his system. Just so nobody thinks I am trying to slam Scott he was my favorite funny car driver and his death bothers me alot, but the sad truth appears to be that for some reason he had some alcohol in his system for some reason and I hope as well that the media doesnt at some point try and slamm a good man and father over something that most likely did not have a role in his death.

[BobOrme]

Originally Posted by Rob Petrie E395

when this all came out a couple of weeks ago on dragracing online I asked my sister in law about this. She works for the state of Virginia crime lab and regularlly testifies in both drug and alcohol DUI cases. Basiclly what I understand now is if we have alcohol in our bodies when we die it turns into a ethanol type substance and by doing blood work and calculating the amounts of it in your blood they can determine how much you may have had to drink or what your blood alchol level might have been at the time of death. She went on to say as a example that if a cdl licened person such as myself were to go out and drink heavily the night before work and get in a truck wreck early the next morning it is likely I would show this kind of stuff in my system and If I survived the accident I would lose my cdl license in most states. My understanding is that while you may not appear or act drunk all of the effects even the next day are not completely out of your system. She tried to go on about a bunch of other stuff relating to how the body breaks down alcohol but to be honest alot of it was scientific crap that was way over my head and I would have trouble explaining it or I would.

For alcohol to show up in a person's blood stream, ingestion by mouth isn't the only way for it to happen. Breathing the fumes can get you there. I owned a bar in the mid-eighties. I walked in one afternoon, and the bartender was in tears. The top shelf had pulled away from the wall maybe 2 minutes before I walked in, dumping about 20 bottles of premium liquor (it literally was "top shelf") to the floor, breaking most of them. She was worried she was going to get fired because of the cost of the liquor that ended up in a pool on the floor. It wasn't her fault, the shelf bracket anchors weren't as secure as they should have been. I told her to take care of customers, and I'd mop up the mess. I got literally got drunk during 10-15 minutes of cleaning up the mess from the fumes. I'm not talking a .02 BAC, more like a .20 BAC, stumbling drunk without drinking a drop.

I'd be interested in seeing if anyone has ever done a study or test on alcohol absorption by people working on and/or driving any car that runs on any percentage of alcohol as a fuel. I'd be willing to bet inhaling the fumes alone will register on any available on-site measuring device. How methanol fume inhalation (burning or not) would register as ethanol in a human body during an autopsy would also be interesting to know.

I honestly believe Scott having a BAC that low is a non-starter - it had nothing to do with his condition or the accident..