Are Blood Tests More Reliable Than a Breathalyzer???

Blood tests are more reliable than a breathalyzer exam but there's a lot of legal issues that often keeps that from being the case in reality. One example of how this can go wrong is with what's currently going on with a former SkyWest Airline pilot in South Dakota.

On 26 October 2016, Russell Duszak tried to go through airport security on his way to work as a passenger pilot with SkyWest Airlines at Rapid City Regional Airport in South Dakota. One of the TSA officers clearing him smelled alcohol on the pilot and called airport police officer Paul Hinzman. Officer Hinzman confronted Duszak as he was performing preflight checks with the other pilot on the flight. Hinzman smelled alcohol on Duszak as well and escorted him off the flight and into another area to be interviewed. Two and a half hours after his detention, Officer Jerred Younie administered a breathalyzer exam which Duszak failed with a BAC of 0.046 % which is above the limit of 0.04% established by the FAA for their pilots. Younie was a security guard and not a trained police officer so he had to contact his supervisors to look up the law to see if Duszak should be arrested for his BAC. This process took almost another 2 hours but outside law enforcement did end up being called. Nearly 5 hours after the TSA agent had initially smelled booze on Duszak's breath he was given a blood test by the local Police Department which he unsurprisingly passed having it likely been at least 6 hours since his last drink testing at 0.015% so the local PD was unable to prosecute Duszak for the crime but, having blown a 0.046% BAC with the airline security, SkyWest Airlines terminated his employment. Duszak recently filed a lawsuit against Hinzman and Younie stating that they were responsible for him not being able to find employment as a pilot since 2016 due to defamation of character. (See the full USA Today article here.)

First off, the reason why the 2 security officers are being named in the lawsuit instead of SkyWest Airlines is likely because it is a private lawsuit issued by Duszak who hasn't spoken to an attorney on the matter at all because this is a horrible idea and it isn't a requirement to file. Anyone and anything can be named in a civil court claim. I could sue my fucking sneakers if I wanted to and a judge would likely hear it long enough to get the information he needs to verify that my sneakers have no will of their own and no financial holdings and dismiss the suit, which as you can imagine probably won't be a long conversation. This case likely won't be successful unless the officers for some reason violated SkyWest's policies on administering BAC tests, which if they had they would have been fired too. Even though you can file a lawsuit without consulting an attorney you probably shouldn't because you might be operating on your emotions instead of any form of logic. An Attorney would likely be willing to give you at least some advice. Even if what you're doing is a bad idea, if they keep you from making that mistake, and maybe offer you some better legal options, that's positive word of mouth for them. Many Attorneys don't charge for consultations so it's free advice take advantage of it.

Secondly, even though the blood test is more precise than the breathalyzer, Duszak was clearly still intoxicated prior to trying to operate that aircraft: multiple employees smelled alcohol on his breath, he tested above the legal limit at least 2 hours after his last drink so he was likely higher than the 0.046% he was originally tested at, and the blood test was conducted about dang near the next day. Administering someone a blood test poses several problems legally. You stand a possibility of injuring the person you're giving the test to or contaminating the results so you really want someone who has a lot of experience in intravenous injections to administer that test. That's not something a bunch of private security guards would get the opportunity to do very often and that's why it took so long to get the test administered. The blood test was a formality at that point. Duszak would have needed to be way drunker than just above the legal limit to have failed that test. (Click here for more information.)

Duszak would be better off at this point dropping his crap lawsuit. His career as a commercial pilot is over at least for now. I know it sucks that the world is like this. Duszak worked at that airline for 10 years and it only takes one incident to take that away from him. Had Duszak called in sick instead of trying to fly anyway he would likely still have a job. I had to do it once. I thought I'd stopped drinking way sooner than I did (pro-tip: Try to give yourself at least 12 hours before operating a motor vehicle.) but when I woke up that day to go to work I quickly realized that it wasn't going to happen when I was too drunk to put my shoes on. You feel embarrassed having to confess that you fucked up to your boss and being drunk makes it even harder to realize you have to do this but had Duszak been honest and taken his licks then he would still have his job. I would go take some AA classes while taking some time at a less prestigious position rebuilding my working track record instead of trying to blame a bunch of civil servants for my bad behavior.