Shit-faced: World Record Drunks




Have you ever been subjected to field sobriety tests such as walk a straight line, or follow the pen? These tests can prove faulty at times, but the standardized Breathalyzer test gives readings as accurate as 99.1%. The Breathalyzer measures the blood alcohol content (BAC) of an individual to determine the approximate level of intoxication. The legal limit for intoxication in most states is .08% and, the lethal limit generally begins at .40%. The following people have baffled the medical and scientific communities, as they have recorded the highest blood alcohol contents in the world.


34 year old man from Portland, Maine


On September 5th, 1991 a 34 year old man from Portland, Maine died in his apartment due to alcohol poisoning. His name was withheld from the article, so he shall remain unknown until further research is concluded. His blood alcohol content was registered at .39%, but medical examiners claim it could have been higher at the time of death.


Denise Thomson


When Denise Thomson was arrested for DUI in Omaha, Nebraska her blood alcohol content was more than five times the legal limit, or .41%. Thomson was also charged with child abuse and negligence, as an eight year old ward of the Department of Health and Human Services was in the car with her at the time of arrest. Sarpy County Sheriff Jeff Davis stated that Thomson’s BAC was the highest he’d ever encountered while working in law enforcement.


49 year old man from Oakland, Maine


In 1991, a 49 year old man from Oakland, Maine died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His blood alcohol content was recorded at .42% at the time of his discovery. This is a prime example as to why guns and alcohol do not mix.


Australian man from Brisbane


An Australian man from Brisbane was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence at a staggering eight times the legal limit of .05. This 48 year old man’s blood alcohol content may set a Queensland record for the most impaired driver ever recorded. Australia isn’t as tolerant as other countries when dealing with impaired driving, that’s why the limit is low and enforcement is high.


41 year old woman from Farmingdale, Maine


In 1991 a 41 year old woman from Farmingdale, Maine was found dead from asphyxiation and alcohol poisoning. Her blood alcohol content was stated to be .45% at the time of death. Coroners would speculate that she choked on her own vomit due to the inability to move, because of the high levels of alcohol in her body. When the body reaches intoxication levels of .45% the central nervous system will shut down which can be fatal.


Deana Jarrett


In April 2007, a former Seattle policewoman was apprehended under the suspicion of drunk driving. Deana Jarrett is being charged with a second DUI and is wanted for questioning about an earlier hit and run case that is still open. Jarrett will serve 440 days consecutively behind bars, and upon her release will be enrolled in Alcoholics Anonymous and confined to her house for the remainder of her probation. Jarrett stunned police in the Seattle-Tacoma area when her blood alcohol content was measured to be .47%.


Stanley Kobierowski


While driving on route 95 in North Providence, Rhode Island Stanley Kobierowski was arrested for DUI after he was found to have struck an electronic road sign. Kobierowski, like many agitated drunks, decided to resist arrest, but this wasn’t what surprised officers. When Kobierowski’s blood alcohol content was taken, it registered a lethal .49%. Kobierowski holds the Rhode Island record for highest BAC ever recorded.


Cloyd Dull


In the small town of Lorain, Ohio a local man named Cloyd Dull made history. When found slumped over in the front seat of his Plymouth with a 40 ounce in the cup holder local authorities discovered Mr. Dull’s blood alcohol content to be .53%, which is five times the legal limit in Ohio. Upon judgment, Cloyd will attend two AA meetings a week, pay more than $500 court fees, and will not be driving for the next six months to a year.


Meagan Harper


Not often do you come across a mug shot and second guess yourself as to whether your looking at a criminal or not. Meagan Harper, a 30 year old woman from Oregon, standing at five feet and eleven inches tall and weighing 130 pounds doesn’t seem a likely candidate for DUI. In her lifetime, the strikingly pretty blonde has collected numerous DUI’s but this latest is her biggest as her blood alcohol content was found to be .55%. Meagan’s bail was posted at $50,000 in a Clackamas county courthouse.


Lithuanian National


The policeman in the small town of Alytus, Lithuania set a record with the arrest of a 38 year old Lithuanian national, whose blood alcohol content was .65%. There are many doubts to the credibility of the story; however, authorities were amazed that the man was still alive with such a high level of intoxication.


Willard Ashley III


According to the La Porte Sheriff’s Office in Indiana, Willard Ashley III and his friend Jacob Prawat were arrested for public intoxication. Upon arriving to the hospital, Ashley’s blood alcohol content was determined to be a staggering .69%. This is the highest BAC ever recorded in Indiana. Willard has two outstanding warrants for his arrest, and upon his release from the hospital was taken into custody.


Terri Comer


In Klamath County, Oregon police discovered an unconscious woman behind the wheel of a wrecked Toyota. The woman’s name is Terri Comer, and upon arrival to the hospital her blood alcohol content was so high it became a state record at .72%. Nine times the legal limit in Oregon, doctors were stunned she survived. The irony in her situation is that when she was found comatose she had wrecked approximately 50 feet from an electronic road sign reminding citizens not to drink and drive.


Lithuanian National II


In the summer of 2006, the policeman of the small town Utenia, Lithuania arrested a man for drunk driving, and discovered his blood alcohol content to be .84%! Refusing initial tests, doctors administered blood samples to determine toxicity. The tests proved right, as the result of .839% came back again. The man’s name isn’t identified, but his arrest is well documented.


Eric Kelly


Around 2:37 am October 19th, 2007, Lock Haven police arrested undergraduate student Eric Kelly on Bellefonte Ave. for public intoxication. When Mr. Kelly was admitted to the Lock Haven hospital, his blood alcohol content registered .90%! Eric was treated and released, and later charged with public drunkenness by the Lock Haven Police Department. On a BAC chart, .40% and beyond is considered lethal, so the fact that Eric Kelly is alive is amazing.


Pyotr Petrov


At the top of plastered mountain we have reigning champion Pyotr Petrov, a Bulgarian national from the town of Plovdiv. On December 20th, 2004 a Mercedes struck the 67 year old Petrov, and he was taken to a nearby hospital. Suffering minor injuries from the collision, Petrov appeared fine and was speaking to doctors coherently, until his blood alcohol content was recorded at .91%. This is the highest BAC registered in the world, as toxicologists explained he had imbibed two liters of vodka that day to achieve that BAC. After being treated and tested multiple times Petrov was released from the hospital.



Sobriety tests are necessary in order to determine the difference between impaired and functional drivers. Blood alcohol content varies from person to person based on chemistry, weight, sex, age, and personal tolerance. You may have learned that .40% BAC will result in death, but some of these people are living proof that what holds true for one, does not necessarily hold true for the other.

Well thanks for that one Marduk!

What country has the highest dui rate?
Here is some information i found a bit outdated. but to answer your question looks like south korea has the most dui related deaths in 1998 so my guess would be they would be in the running for the top dui rate in the world!!!

Highest Road Deaths Worldwide
Road Deaths Around the World:
Country Deaths/100k
Vehicles (1998)

S. Korea 80.33
Turkey 76.75
Poland 55.71
Portugal 35.02
France 30.24
Denmark 21.44
USA 19.97
Iceland 16.87
Italy 16.71
Canada 16.65
Germany 15.71
UK 12.73
Sweden 11.81

Source: German Federal Highway Research Institute

but at least we know they are doing something to prevent this here is current allowable B.A.C in the folllowing countries:

Tough BAC Maximums:
.00% is the maximum BAC in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kyrgyzst, Romania, and the Slovak Republic.
.01% is the maximum BAC in Albania.
.02% is the maximum BAC in Norway and Sweden.
.03% is the maximum BAC in Moldova, Georgia, and Turkmenistan.
.04% is the maximum BAC in Lithuania.
05% is the maximum BAC in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (Republic of), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, The Netherlands, and Turkey.
.08% is the maximum BAC in a number of U.S. states and cities, as well as in Canada, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe.

NEW YORK - It seemed too horrendous even to imagine. But the case of the mother who caused a deadly wrong-way crash while drunk and stoned is part of a disturbing trend: Women in the U.S. are drinking more, and drunken-driving arrests among women are rising rapidly while falling among men.

And some of those women, as in the New York case, are getting behind the wheel with kids in the back.

Men still drink more than women and are responsible for more drunken-driving cases. But the gap is narrowing, and among the reasons cited are that women are feeling greater pressures at work and home, they are driving more, and they are behaving more recklessly.


“Younger women feel more empowered, more equal to men, and have been beginning to exhibit the same uninhibited behaviors as men,” said Chris Cochran of the California Office of Traffic Safety.

Another possible reason cited for the rising arrests: Police are less likely to let women off the hook these days.

Across the country
Nationwide, the number of women arrested for driving under the influence or alcohol or drugs was 28.8 percent higher in 2007 than it was in 1998, while the number of men arrested was 7.5 percent lower, according to FBI figures that cover about 56 percent of the country. (Despite the incomplete sample, Alfred Blumstein, a Carnegie Mellon University criminologist, said the trend probably holds true for the country as a whole.)

“Women are picking up some of the dangerously bad habits of men,” said Chuck Hurley, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

In New York’s Westchester County, where Diane Schuler’s crash killed her and seven other people last month, the number of women arrested for drunken driving is up 2 percent this year, and officers said they are noticing more women with children in the back seat.

“We realized for the last two to three years, the pattern of more female drivers, particularly mothers with kids in their cars, getting arrested for drunk driving,” said Tom Meier, director of Drug Prevention and Stop DWI for the county.

In one case there, a woman out clubbing with her teenage daughter was sent to prison for causing a wrong-way crash that killed her daughter’s friend.

Another woman was charged with driving drunk after witnesses said she had been drinking all day before going to pick up her children at school. Authorities said the children were scared during the ride, and once they got home, they jumped out of the car, ran to a neighbor’s house and told an adult, who called police. The mother lay passed out in the car, and police said her blood alcohol level was 0.27 percent — more than three times the legal limit.

In California, based on the same FBI figures, women accounted for 18.8 percent of all DUI arrests in 2007, up from 13.5 percent in 1998, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety.

Nearly 250 youngsters were killed in alcohol-related crashes in the U.S. in 2007, and most of them were passengers in the car with the impaired driver, according to the National Highway Safety Administration.

“Drunk drivers often carry their kids with them,” said MADD’s Hurley. “It’s the ultimate form of child abuse.”

Arrests of drunken mothers with children in the car remain rare, but police officers can generally list a few.