Man on vodka binge blows 0.462
www.news.com.au | December 17, 2004
BY all accounts he should be dead, but somehow Rafer Wilson survived a two-week drinking binge to record a blood-alcohol reading more than nine times the legal .05 limit.
With an empty vodka bottle lying on the passenger seat of his beige Mazda 626, the 35-year-old crashed into a parked car on Caringbah Rd, not 200m from his Caringbah home in Sydney's south.
Police evidence tendered to court revealed a man so drunk he could not stand when ordered out of the car by police.
As Wilson made that first tentative step, his legs crumpled, he collapsed to his knees, lurched forward and smacked his head on the driver's side door, police stated.
His words were close to unintelligible but he allegedly managed to reveal he had been drinking for two weeks.
It was 4.15pm and on that day alone, October 24, 2003, he had managed to finish off one-and-a-half bottles, or 35 nips, of vodka to record a blood-alcohol reading of .462.
Experts are amazed he is alive.
Forensic toxicologist Allan Hodda from the State Government's Division of Analytical Laboratories, said it was an "incredible level" of alcohol in the blood.
"Based on a lot of medical books, he should not be alive," he said.
"There are people around who can tolerate these levels but that doesn't mean their livers are not shot."
Paul Dillon from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre said people could "die from a lot less alcohol than that".
"There are people who have died from a 10th of that amount," he said.
"This bloke had an awful lot of good luck."
Mr Dillon said it was "bizarre you could physically drink that much and not pass out".
Mr Hodda said he had seen higher readings but more often than not those people were dead.
"We've had young kids who accepted dares and have tried to swallow a bottle of rum and then collapsed and died," he said.
More than 12 months on, Wilson's case is still before the courts.
He had expected to be sentenced yesterday in Sutherland Court but the matter was held over to the Downing Centre Local Court for March 3.
Wilson pleaded guilty to the high-range drink driving charge - his second. He pleaded guilty to the same charge in 1997 and was fined $600 and was disqualified from driving for two years.
This time he faces a possible jail term.
Documents lodged with the court indicate he has put himself through an eight-week rehabilitation course since last year's crash.
NSW Police confirmed the highest recorded drink driving reading in the state was a woman who blew 0.572 - more than 11 times the legal .05 limit - in Orange in 2002.
She had just dropped her children at school.
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