Police say that a 68-year-old man was intoxicated when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed in Bucks County on the evening of March 29. According to media reports, the accident took place on West Court Street in Doylestown at approximately 8:40 p.m. The local resident was taken into custody at the scene for suspicion of driving while under the influence of alcohol and transported to a nearby hospital to be checked for injuries and provide a blood sample for toxicology testing.
First responders arrived at the accident scene to discover that the man’s car had flipped over and come to a rest on its roof. Firefighters and paramedics are said to have then used cutting equipment to extract the man from his badly damaged vehicle.
After rescue workers had freed him from his vehicle, police officers claim to have noticed the smell of alcohol on the man’s breath during questioning. He was taken into custody after allegedly failing to complete a series of field sobriety exercises. However, reports do not reveal what may have been discovered when the man’s blood was tested for alcohol and drugs.
Toxicology reports are usually crucial pieces of evidence in drunk driving cases, but they may sometimes be challenged by experienced criminal defense attorneys. Attorneys could question blood alcohol evidence when strict protocols were not followed during testing or the equipment used to analyze blood or breath samples was defective or poorly maintained. Attorneys could also seek to have drunk driving charges dismissed when their clients suffer from medical conditions that could influence the results of toxicology tests or make field sobriety exercises difficult to perform.
Source: The Doylestown Patch, “DUI Driver Extricated After Flipping Car On Court Street: Police”, Kara Seymour, April 2, 2018
