Must have been one hell of a party...

[WilliamPitt]

Woman's blood alcohol content topples state records

Andrea J. Cook Journal staff | Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 9:15 am | (8) Comments

A Sturgis woman had a blood-alcohol level of .708 percent, possibly a state record, when she was found earlier this month behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle parked on Interstate 90, according to Meade County State’s Attorney Jesse Sondreal.

A South Dakota Highway Patrol trooper discovered Marguerite Engle, 45, on Dec. 1 passed out behind the wheel of a delivery truck reported stolen in Rapid City.

Her blood-alcohol level was almost nine times South Dakota’s legal limit of .08 percent.

Checks with local and state labs where blood-alcohol levels are tested suggest Engle’s reading may be the highest ever recorded in South Dakota, Sondreal said.

Sondreal said a state chemist recalled a sample that tested .53, but nothing higher, in his more than 30 years on the job.

Dr. Robert Looyenga, who recently retired from the Rapid City Police Department’s forensic laboratory, told Sondreal that the highest blood-alcohol sample he tested measured .56 percent.

Sondreal’s research indicates that a blood-alcohol level of .40 is considered a lethal dose for about 50 percent of the population.

“Engle’s was almost double that,” Sondreal said.

The rest: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_9d4a1d0e-f4d1-11de-8edf-001cc4c002e0.html

[mike_c]

1. she's lucky to be alive, although it sounds like she'll live a short life...

...unless she gets that jones under control.

[TK421]

2. If livers could talk, hers would have been screaming n/t

[SoxFan]

6. I think hers must have escaped by now

[OffWithTheirHeads]

3. Oh Laura, Laura. We know how hard being a Bush family member

must be but this isn't really the answer.

[Kali]

4. holy shit

I thought this was pretty extreme http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x9188348

[Mopar151]

5. Gotta be some mental health issues....

I'm pretty sure alive does'nt mean all right.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. That's awful! South Dakotans usually don't get that low in the winter.

[Brother Buzz]

8. I believe a South Dakota state lab machine needs recalibration

That, or a technichian needs to stop using an alcohol swab to clean the probes.

[lastliberalintexas]

13. Yes, I thought that had to be a typo

Who knew someone could survive such a level?

[Brother Buzz]

14. Only Bluto Blutarsky could survive that abuse and he's dead

[Deep13]

9. That's more like embalmed than drunk. nt

[Demoiselle]

10. As someone of Swedish extraction born in NORTH Dakota, let me observe that:

winters in the Dakotas are as dark, bitter and snowy as they are in the northernmost parts of Scandinavia.
Only with less human company and more howling wind. (Snowstorms tend to be horizontal.)
The mystery to me is not that this poor soul has a pickled liver, but that so many people there manage to stay relatively sober.
Cheers.

[Quantess]

11. She was on the way to the liquor store to buy more booze

I bet.

[guitar man]

12. Could've been the whisky

Might have been the gin...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGFWrFtq3RY&feature=youtube_gdata

:D