Will the hospital check my blood for alcohol content?
Posted By Lloyd Golburgh on Aug 24, 2009 11:28am PDT
"will the hospital check my blood for alcohol" wrote, "last night, i mad a poor choice when i decided to drive drunk. i ended
up fliping my car and got taken to the hospital. a police officer came
and gave me a ticket for careless driving but no ticket for dui. while
at the hospital they took 4 tubes of blood. is it posible for me to get
a dui?"
floridaduipro aswered: "yes." the hospital will likely test your blood
for it's alcohol content. the state attorney can issue a subpoena for
those results so long as you are notified of their intent to do so.
also, depending upon the circumstances, the officer may have ordered a
blood draw. in that case, the nurse would have drawn your blood and
handed over the test tubes to the officer, who would then submit them
to the medical examiner's office for analysis. the circumstances
surrounding the legality of the blood draw need to be explored by an
attorney experienced in dealing with 'blood draw' cases. the fact that
you weren't arrested leads me to believe that, either they could not
establish impairment, or, you were going to be staying at the hospital
and couldn't be released. typically, law enforcement will await the
results of the blood-analysis and, if you were over the legal limit,
issue a 'summons for you to appear' for an arraignment. i am a broward county dui lawyer and would be happy to meet with you to discuss all
this in person for free.