Acid Reflux And Your DUI Arrest: Discover How These Two Things May Be Related
Posted on: 3 April 2015
Do you frequently experience acid reflux after eating a large meal or having a beer with friends? If so, this medical condition may have played a role in your DUI arrest without you ever realizing it. More importantly, with the help of a qualified DUI attorney, this medical condition can play a major role in helping to get the charges against you dismissed.
What Does Acid Reflux Have To Do With Driving Under The Influence?
While acid reflux will not actually have any impact on your blood alcohol content, it can have a huge impact on the ability of the arresting officer to accurately measure your BAC levels. This is because acid reflux can interfere with the reliability of a breathalyzer exam. In fact, this medical condition can actually result in a false positive when taking a breathalyzer test.
How Can Acid Reflux Cause A Breathalyzer To Produce A False Positive?
In order to understand the impact that acid reflux can have on a breathalyzer test, you must first understand how a breathalyzer is supposed to work.
When you breathe into a breathalyzer, it is supposed to measure the amount of alcohol that is present in what is known as deep lung air. This air comes from the deepest areas of your lungs and contains an alcohol level that is identical to the levels that can be found in your bloodstream.
In order for a breathalyzer test to provide accurate results, it is critical that only the alcohol content in the deep lung air is being measured. In most cases, this can be done by simply asking the person being tested to take a deep breath and slowly exhale into the machine. However, things are not quite so simple when dealing with a person who has acid reflux.
Acid reflux can result in the presence of what is known as mouth alcohol. Essentially, this is alcohol that is regurgitated into the mouth along with acid from the stomach when experiencing acid reflux. Since the breathalyzer test is not capable of separating the mouth alcohol from the alcohol that is found in the deep lung air, this machine will typically render a result that is much higher than your actual blood alcohol level. In some cases, this can result in you being arrested for DUI despite the fact that you are not legally intoxicated.
How Can This Information Help Your Case?
Many DUI cases will rely heavily upon the results of a breathalyzer test in order to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you were intoxicated at the time of your arrest. By presenting evidence to the court regarding your acid reflux condition, you may be able to discredit the results of the breathalyzer test. With this evidence being discredited, it will be extremely difficult for the prosecution to prove their case against you.
In order to learn whether or not this defense strategy could be effective in your particular case, be sure to consult a reputable DUI attorney in your local area like R. Patrick McPherson Attorney At Law.
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