McAlister 1
Daniel McAlister
Dr. Gaines
Writing 101
10 April 2013
Along The Mountain Pass
I remember it was a cold December evening. Thick storm clouds covered the night sky. The absence of any light, from the moon or stars, allowed the darkness to suck me into its cold, damp, chilling shroud of fear. The brisk, icy frost that hit my throat each time I inhaled was quickly soothed by the warm, moist air that would escape from my lungs, like a cloud of smoke, as I exhaled. “I knew I shouldn’t have served Mr. Sanford those last few drinks,” I said to myself that night, as I walked to my car. I had not been expecting the weather to turn so bad. Mr. Sanford was a 72 year old retired Navy Master Chief. He once told me that since the age of 13 there had not been a day that went by when he did not drink. He was kindly referred to by his drinking buddies as, “a salty dog.” Most nights, Mr. Sanford had no problems getting himself home safely. It was just a couple of miles down the road from the bar to his driveway. But that night was different.
I recall sitting in my car after work allowing the engine to warm up. As I sat there, I started thinking about all of the statistics I had just learned a couple of months earlier, when my fellow co-workers and I had attended an alcohol training class. It was required of us by the state liquor board in order to continue working as bartenders. In 2008, 46 percent of all car crashes, in the state of Colorado, involving one participant with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 percent or greater, ended in a fatality. If you were to take that 46 percent and factor in the presence of black ice, and men over the age of 60 as the impaired participant, you would arrive at a 94 percent fatality rate.
McAlister 2
Once my engine had warmed up, I started driving down the short mountain pass from the ski lodge, where the bar I worked at was located. The mountain pass was the same steep, winding road everyone, coming or going, had to travel. Mr. Sanford’s cabin, where he lived by himself, was located just past the exit one had to take in order to head up the mountain pass, off of the main road through town. As I continued driving, more thoughts ran through my mind like, “Just exactly how many drinks did I serve Mr. Sanford?” and “Had he ordered anything to eat from the kitchen that night?” The amount of alcohol required for someone to become impaired differs according to how fast you drink, your weight, your gender, and how much food you have in your stomach. I generally tried to keep my patrons limited to 2 drinks per hour, but it was difficult to monitor on a busy weekend night, and I recall feeling quite certain that I had over-served him.
I remember driving slowly, being careful not to make any sudden stops or turns. They could be disastrous in those conditions. Just before I approached the last narrow bend in the road, I saw the reflections of red and blue flickering lights as they glistened off the pure white snow along the mountainside. “Oh shit,” I whispered to myself, “Please don’t let this involve Mr. Sanford, or for that matter, any other patron from the bar.” My wishes fell on deaf ears.
Across the median, up the embankment and wrapped around a giant tree was the severely mangled white Ford truck Mr. Sanford drove. The truck hit the tree with such force, that the entire engine compartment had sandwiched itself between the cab and the tree trunk, like a beer can does when you smash it in a can-crusher in order to recycle it. Mr. Sanford was pronounced dead at the scene. The paramedics said, “He died immediately on impact and he never felt a thing.” In his official story of the events the Chief of Police said, “The accident occurred as a result of the truck’s throttle malfunctioning when Mr. Sanford hit a patch of black ice, and attempted to brake.”
McAlister 3
Although in my mind I was certain his BAC was above the legal limit, I will never know for certain if that was the cause of the accident because there was no autopsy performed. You see, Mr. Sanford was a respected member of the community in the small mountain town where we lived, and the police chief was one of his closest friends. Perhaps he didn’t feel it was necessary to tarnish the death of his friend with the accusation of drunk driving.
I often think back to that night, and how fortunate I was to have not been suspected of over-serving Mr. Sanford. After that, I became much more cautious about monitoring the number of drinks my patrons were served and even started having an additional bartender on call, for those extra busy nights. On nights where there was a high risk of black ice on the mountain pass, we either offered to pay for our patrons cab ride home or, if there were vacancies, offered them a 50 percent discount on a room at the ski lodge. As a result of those changes, there were no more incidents involving our patrons driving under the influence along the mountain pass.