Kale Williams
San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — Christie Wendling lined her feet up, one in front of the other, just like the officer told her, but she only made it a few steps down the straight line before she stumbled.
“Can I try that again?” she asked with a chortle, her speech slurring from the drinks she’d had earlier in the day.
“Sure you can, ma’am. Please head back to the start of the line,” the officer responded.
Wendling hadn’t been pulled over on the road after emerging from a bar. The dispatcher with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office was one of five volunteers who got drunk on in a nondescript office building near Pier 96 on Thursday afternoon, under the watchful eye of law enforcement officers from around the Bay Area enrolled in a course to help them recognize impaired drivers.
“This is some of the most valuable training out there,” said San Francisco police Officer Josh Enea, one of the instructors. “The whole purpose of this course is to better prepare the officers to be able to recognize somebody that’s under the influence of alcohol.”
The so-called wet lab was one section of a three-day class sponsored by the California Highway Patrol and funded by a grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The volunteers began drinking around 11:30 a.m. Given their choice of Ketel One vodka or Jameson whiskey, each drank carefully measured doses throughout the day so that, by the time officers began administering sobriety tests around 2:30 p.m., each was at a different level of inebriation, ranging from stoic-but-slightly-swaying to gushing and giggly.
“I’m having a great time,” Wendling said, in between stumbling down the line and failing to stand on one foot for 30 seconds without falling over.
“I’m not even sure how many drinks I had,” she said, “but I usually work the graveyard shift so the fact that I’m awake at all is a minor miracle.”
Each volunteer was given three tests. The first was to follow at an officer’s finger as it waved back and forth in front of their face. The classic straight-line walk came next — nine steps down, a pivot and nine steps back, preferably without falling over — followed by standing on one foot for 30 seconds.
All the while, a group of five or six officers stood by, taking careful notes and looking for any signs of intoxication — of which, on Thursday, there were plenty. The volunteer was then given a breath test, while the officers tried to guess the result.
In Wendling’s case, the group guessed her blood alcohol level was around .07 percent, or just under the legal limit to drive. After a long blow into the device, she blew a .069, so the officers were not far off.
“This is the real thing,” Enea said, noting how much more effective it was to have a real volunteer compared to watching videos of drunk people. “With the wet lab, you’re hearing it. You’re seeing it. You’re smelling it.”
Lt. Jenn Jackson, a 20-year veteran of the San Francisco force who works in the northern district, said she was planning to use what she learned to better coach officers she supervises.
“From a supervisor’s perspective, we need to know how our officers are conducting DUI investigations,” she said. “Having been through this class, it will make me a better mentor for my officers, coaching them through how they investigate drunk driving.”
In 2013, more than 10,000 people — or one every 51 minutes — died in car crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A recent study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that drivers with a .08 percent blood alcohol content were four times more likely to crash than sober drivers. Drivers with a .15 percent blood alcohol content were 12 times more likely to crash.
“This class is a win-win situation because it gives the officers a chance to observe how people of different sizes and tolerances handle alcohol, but it also gives the volunteers a chance to see how they themselves deal with drinking,” Enea said.
“At the end of the day, it’s about knowing when to get people off the road,” he said. “I go to far too many accident scenes that I shouldn’t have to.”
Copyright 2015 the San Francisco Chronicle