When someone is arrested for driving under the influence and they are required to submit to a chemical test (breath or blood) and they choose to have a blood test, the blood will be drawn by somebody who is licensed by the State of California to draw blood for forensic or scientific purposes – not for a medical test or medical evaluation – but someone trained specifically to draw blood to be analyzed in a crime lab.
The person drawing the blood may be a licensed phlebotomist, a blood draw technician, or someone similar. In order to have a successful, trustworthy, reliable blood draw, that person needs to have the appropriate training and qualifications to draw the blood.
In DUI cases, we see blood being drawn in a variety of locations. Sometimes the person is transported to a hospital and the blood is drawn in a sanitary hospital setting with the appropriate technician and appropriate equipment. Other times, blood may be drawn in a less sanitary, less clean environment such as in a police station. It may not be a drawn in a medically-approved manner which may be problematic for the blood draw, the person getting the blood drawn, as well as the analysis of the blood.
A lot of times people are transported to a police station and the blood is drawn by a mobile blood draw technician or someone employed by the police department to draw blood, and they do it in the police station itself, possibly in a jail cell or a room specifically designed for blood draws.
Sometimes, we will see that people who are arrested for driving under the influence are tested roadside. For example, if somebody is stopped in a DUI checkpoint, the police may have a mobile command center or a trailer on-site where breath and blood testing can take place. So, if someone chooses to have a blood test or is suspected of driving under the influence of drugs, they may be taken immediately to a blood draw technician and have the blood drawn onsite in a trailer.
This may or may not be an approved method, and it may or may not be sanitary. In some situations, blood can be drawn from suspects in a police car. They may be in the back seat of a car and the farther away from a hospital you get, the less reliable, the less trustworthy a blood sample is going to be and the more room for error exists. A hospital setting would be best. A police station with a room dedicated to doing blood draws may also be okay.
When someone has their blood drawn in a jail cell or a trailer out on the side of the road, it can be really sketchy and questionable as to the proper method of blood draw. If somebody is being hogtied and handcuffed and the blood is being drawn in the back of a police car, it becomes real questionable how that blood is being drawn, whether it’s being done in a medically-approved manner and whether the ultimate result that someone’s going to get from that sample is going to be trustworthy.
Are There Any Costs Attached to the Blood Draw?
Usually when somebody has been arrested and they’re taken to a hospital, the arresting agency is going to bear the cost of that blood draw. There are circumstances where local hospitals may send a bill to a person for having medical services rendered to them or for having a blood draw done.
That’s really not appropriate for somebody arrested for driving under the influence. This is not something they readily chose to do. They were transported in custody to the medical facility, and the blood draw would have been done at the request of the police department whether that be the California Highway Patrol or the Los Angeles Police Department or whomever it is that was taking the person to the hospital.
How Long Does Alcohol Usually Stay in the System?
It depends on how much the person had to drink. It varies a little from person to person, depending on certain factors such as what they had to eat recently. The standard is that an average person will eliminate or burn off about a 0.15 g of alcohol per hour, so somebody will eliminate 0.015 blood alcohol level per hour. That is a common figure that’s used that can vary depending on the person.
It could be a 0.12 per hour that the person will burn off or eliminate or it could be less. How long alcohol stays in the blood can also be affected by how they consumed it: whether they drank it in a social setting over a long period of time, whether they drank over a short period of time, whether they drank a lot at one point, or whether the person consumed the alcohol with food.
If somebody were to have an empty stomach and consume alcohol, it may stay in the system for a matter of minutes, or potentially it could stay in the system for hours on an empty stomach. If someone were to have consumed food with the alcohol it could easily be four or five or six hours before the person reaches the maximum blood alcohol that they are going to get and then they are going to eliminate 0.015 per hour until they get back down to zero.
So, the short answer to how long alcohol will stay in a person’s blood or in a person’s system is anywhere from about 15 minutes to probably an hour and a half on an empty stomach and easily a couple of hours, if not longer, on a full stomach.
For more information on Drawing Blood in a Blood Draw, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you’re seeking by calling (310) 424-3145 today.
Personal Attention
