No, seriously. I think the only way to get you help >> All good? >> Yeah. >> Cool. >> Most impaired driving [music] stops begin with a police officer noticing something wrong. This one began with a stranger, an ordinary person going about their evening in Palm Coast, Florida, who saw a car stopped where no car should be dead in the middle of an intersection and did the decent thing. [music] They stopped to help. And in stopping to help, that good Samaritan walked straight into the opening moments of a DUI [music] investigation because the driver behind the wheel was not simply broken down. She couldn't get the car out of gear. She couldn't say where she was. And before the night was over, she would give the deputies who arrived not one name, but two. This is the story of a stop that almost didn't happen, of a deputy who, by the account of the footage, was prepared to let her go right up until the moment she made that impossible. We should start with the good Samaritan because they are the quiet hero of this story and the reason it has an ending that did not involve a crash. Think about what they did. They were driving through Palm Coast, minding their own evening, and they came upon a car stalled in the middle of an intersection, one of the most dangerous places a vehicle can be stopped. The easy thing, the thing most people do, is to go around it, to assume someone else will handle it, to not get involved. Instead, this person stopped. They approached. They tried to help a stranger [music] who appeared to be in trouble. And in doing so, they almost certainly [music] prevented something far worse. >> Hey, ma'am. >> Hi, how are you? >> Good. What's your name? >> Ashley. >> Ashley? What's going on Ashley? >> Um my mom is trying to or I guess this is I don't know. Somebody trying to follow me. I don't know. >> Um that is not your mom and it's not someone trying to follow you. Do you have any idea where you're at right now? >> Yeah. >> Where you at? >> Um I'm at Palm I'm at Palm Palm Desert. Up there where my dog lives. >> Where your dog lives? >> Yep. >> Where were you coming from? >> Are you diabetic? >> No. >> Okay. >> Where were you coming from? >> I was coming from my house. >> Okay. Do you happen to have a driver's license with you? >> Sure. >> Follow us. Follow us to the same place. >> Same place. >> I'll follow you back. She got a bottle of water. Um is there any reason why you took your shirt off? >> Yeah, cuz it's hot outside. >> It sure is. >> Yep. >> So, where's your ID, ma'am? >> I don't know. I'm having a very hard time. >> Okay, what's going on? >> Um I'm having a hard time right now. Um I'm living with somebody who is >> A car immobilized in an intersection with an impaired driver [music] behind the wheel is a catastrophe waiting for the next vehicle to come through. By stopping, by staying, by recognizing that something [music] was wrong and getting help on the way. That good Samaritan took a driver who should not have been on the road out of the path of everyone else who was. We talk a great deal on this channel about the people who caused these dangers. We should talk more about the ones who quietly diffuse them. This stop began with one of them. By the time deputies arrived, the picture was already forming, not through dramatic behavior, but through a series of small, quiet wrongnesses that [music] stacked together told the whole story. She couldn't get the car out of gear, a simple mechanical thing, something every licensed driver does without thinking, and she couldn't manage it. That alone is a flag. The body knows how to operate a familiar machine on autopilot. When that autopilot fails, it often means the mind running it is impaired. And then, there was the larger, stranger [music] sign. She couldn't say where she was. Not lost in the sense of needing directions, unable [music] to place herself in the world. >> I was just turning this on to give your dog some cold air. I didn't mean you should go into it. >> Okay. >> So, again, what's our Which one of your parents would you like me to call to talk to? >> Um my mother. >> What's her phone number? >> 954 >> What's her phone number? >> Um 954 I have to find her phone number. >> No, no, no, no. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Do you need it from your phone? >> Yeah. >> Where's your phone located? >> In my purse. >> Your phone is located in your phone. >> My phone is located in my >> Where is specifically? >> In my Inside the car. >> Okay, my partner is going to go get it for you. >> Okay. So, the passenger seat? >> Yes. >> I don't see it. >> Is it in your pockets at all? >> I mean, I patted her down for weapons. I don't remember anything in there. >> It's not in your pockets, so I'm working. You just keep your chest area covered, please. Do you know your phone number? >> Yeah, 911-754 >> So, here's where we stand. I would like to try to get a hold of your parents. How old are >> I didn't ask. >> Huh? >> What were you saying? >> What I'd like to do is try to get a hold of your parents. I think you're obviously having a real bad day. Yeah, you committed a crime by making you need more help than going to jail. >> Here. >> I hear you. >> A person who does not know where they are is a person whose basic awareness has come unmoored, and on a roadway that is among the most dangerous conditions a driver can be in. These are the details that rarely make the thumbnail, but they are the heart of a real DUI investigation. Not the shouting. Not the spectacle, the quiet failures of ordinary function. The gear she couldn't find, the location she couldn't name. Each one a small crack, and through them the deputies could see exactly what kind of night this was. But the clearest sign was still coming. And it was the one that took the decision out of everyone's hands. There is one thing a sober person, however nervous, however confused, almost never gets wrong. Their own name. It is the most practiced piece of information a human being carries. And in this stop, it became the detail that decided everything. Because at one point, by the account of the footage, she gave the deputies two different names. Not a mispronunciation. Not a maiden name and a married name offered [music] together. Two different identities where there should only ever be one. >> [music] >> And that is the kind of error that cannot be explained away by nerves. It is a window directly into the level of impairment a mind [music] so clouded that it cannot hold steady on the single most fundamental fact about itself. For the deputies, a moment like that is clarifying. Up [music] to that point, the encounter might still have lived in some gray area. A driver who seemed off. A stop that might still have ended quietly. But a person who cannot reliably state their own name is not a person who is safe to drive away. The two names closed the door on any other reading of the night. Whatever had been uncertain a moment before was uncertain no longer. With the signs accumulating, >> You remain uh up to the vehicle. >> Yes. >> Do you know what that was on for? >> My parents >> Okay. >> Can they come pick your dog up? >> Yes. >> Okay. Stand with your back to the vehicle. >> Okay. >> The deputies did what the law requires before an arrest. They attempted the standardized field sobriety tests. >> Do you see the tip of my pen? >> Yeah. >> Can you touch it with your finger like this? >> Yeah. >> Just your finger. Stop. Just your finger. Why do you keep doing that? >> I don't >> Touch it with your finger like this. >> The structured, [music] validated tasks designed to measure objectively whether a person is impaired. By the account of the footage, those attempts quickly went nowhere, [music] and that, in its own way, is an answer. The field sobriety tests [music] are built so that a sober person can complete them, and an impaired person cannot keep up. >> Okay, thank you. So, you can see the top of the pen right here. Right? >> Yep. >> Do you wear glasses? >> I do. >> Do you have them? >> Yeah. >> Are you wearing contacts? >> No. >> Do you need your glasses? >> No, they're in my car. >> You do not need your glasses. >> Well, they're in my car. >> Would you like your glasses? >> Um no, not really. >> Okay. All right, so stare at the tip of my pen right here. >> Okay. >> Okay? [music] And with your eyes and your eyes only >> When the attempts collapse almost before they begin, when a driver cannot follow the instructions, cannot hold the positions, cannot perform the basic tasks, the test has done its job. It has confirmed, in a structured and defensible way, [music] what the small signs already suggested. The tests did not fail. They worked exactly as designed. >> You're going to follow the tip of the pen. All right, eyes and eyes only, you're going to follow the tip of the pen. Does that make sense? >> Yes. >> Then why do you keep clicking my pen? >> Because you're asking me to click your pen. >> That's not what she asked. >> I asked with your eyes and your eyes only, follow the tip of my pen. Does that make sense? >> Yes. >> All right, this is the third time. That's enough. >> Can you follow the tip of my pen? >> Yeah. >> Can you face me and with your eyes only follow the tip of my pen? Follow the tip of my pen. >> [screaming] >> Follow my pen. One of the lights. Yeah. >> Oh, it's >> Follow the tip of my pen. >> It's not on. >> You're not looking at it. >> I know cuz I am not >> They simply produced the answer no one wanted, that this driver was in no condition to be behind the wheel and there was by then physical evidence to match the behavior because somewhere in that vehicle deputies reported finding the small liquor bottles, the little single-serving [music] bottles that turn up so often in these stops. Not proof on their own, but one more piece >> [music] >> slotting into place beside the gear she couldn't find, the place she couldn't [music] name, the two names she couldn't keep straight. The picture was complete. Here is the detail that gives this case [music] its hook and it is worth taking seriously because it reveals something about how these stops actually work. By the framing of the footage, >> [music] >> the deputy was at some point prepared to let her go. That may sound surprising, but it shouldn't. [music] Officers have discretion and they do not want to arrest people unnecessarily. If a driver can be safely sorted out some other way, a sober ride, a vehicle moved, a situation resolved without custody, many officers will take that path. There was, it seems, a version of this night where she did not go to jail. A door that was, for a moment, still open. And then it closed because of something she did. The title of the footage built around this case promises exactly that turn. He was going to let her go. Until she did this. Whatever the specific moment was the second name, a failed test, a behavior that removed any remaining doubt, it was the point where discretion ran out. Where the deputy's willingness to find another way collided with a reality that left no other way. That is the quiet lesson buried in so many of these stops. The outcome is often not fixed from the start. [music] It is decided in real time by the person being stopped and by whether they let the off-ramp stay open or slam it shut themselves. The off-ramp [music] closed and the night reached the only place it could. She was arrested on suspicion [music] of driving under the influence. >> I mentioned wanting to get you help earlier. I have changed my mind entirely. >> No, seriously. >> Joe. >> I think the only way to get you help >> Turn around. Up against the vehicle. And it's behind me. Back. Stop tensing. >> I'm not going to let you take me away. >> Yep. You can tell that to the judge when he reads my arrest report. Whiskey 501715 change that to 11. >> Okay. This is the best place to get it. >> We're going this way. >> And in the end, the story circles back to where it began, to the stranger who stopped. Because every step that followed, the deputies arriving, the signs adding up, the tests, the arrest, all of it was set in motion by one person's decision not to drive around a problem. >> Yep. Get you out of here. Let me get my car scanned out. What? All good? >> Yeah. Watch your head. >> The Good Samaritan [music] did not just help a confused driver. They pulled an impaired one off the road before she could become a headline of a very [music] different kind. There is no way to know what was prevented. The crash that didn't happen leaves no evidence. But on a night when a driver couldn't name herself, couldn't place herself, couldn't work her own car, the most important person at that intersection may have been the one who simply stopped to help. She couldn't get the car out of gear. She couldn't say where she was. She gave two different names. And a deputy who was ready to let her go found, in the end, that he couldn't not because he wanted to arrest her, but because she left him nothing else to do. That is how most of these nights actually end. Not with a dramatic chase or a violent struggle, but with the slow, quiet accumulation of small failures until the only safe choice is the one nobody wanted. The intersection is clear now. The car [music] is gone. And somewhere out there is a stranger who stopped to help, who will probably never know how much worse the night could [music] have been and a driver who learned that there are some things on a roadside that you cannot [music] talk your way past starting with your own name.