Residual Mouth Alcohol and Gastroesophogeal Reflux
Charles is a frequent speaker and a prolific writer on all matters related to OVI / DUI defense.
Undetected, raw, unabsorbed alcohol in the mouth may falsely elevate the results of a breath test. This residual mouth alcohol (RMA) can come from items ingested just prior to the test, from regurgitated (burped) air from the stomach, or from gastroesophogeal reflux. Ohio testing protocol attempts to guard against this testing flaw by requiring officers to observe the defendant for twenty minutes prior to the test. They look for burping, vomiting or any ingestion of items into the mouth. Lazy observation by the police officer can result in a contamination of the test.
The BAC DataMaster and the Intoxilyzer 8000, Ohio’s most common breath testing instruments, further guard against this type of problem with “slope detectors” which look at the air coming into the machine. If the air is too heavily laden with alcohol it changes the shape of the curve and should result in the machine kicking out an “INVALID SAMPLE” reading. This reading requires the officer to start the observation period over again. Good DUI/OVI attorneys will know the science behind the “slope detector” and its operation and can effectively explain this to a jury. Charles M. Rowland II is a certified operator of the BAC DataMaster and the Intoxilyzer 8000.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=06a076fc-8224-489b-9c12-9492afaa75e3 "Residual Mouth Alcohol and Gastroesophogeal Reflux 3")