Connecticut Women Arrested for DUI After Drinking Hand Sanitizer

Hand sanitizer normally has a 99 percent alcohol content, which is why it has the ability to kill germs on the skin when it is applied. Recently, a women discovered that hand sanitizer ad driving don’t mix when she chugged a bottle of the strong antibacterial liquid. The 36-year-old veered her car towards a police patrol vehicle while the officer was dealing with another driver that he had pulled over for an infraction. He then chased after Jennifer Wilcox, who was driving drunk. When Wilcox pulled over to the side of the road, the police said that they detected alcohol on her breath. When they questioned her about her recent drinking history, Wilcox insisted that she hadn’t had anything to drink.

Wilcox failed the breathalyzer test, meriting a .17 BAC. Because the legal limit is .08 percent, the police had enough proof to arrest Wilcox on charges of driving under the influence. Still, they couldn’t determine which type of alcohol was the culprit of the crime. Eventually, Wilcox admitted that she had guzzled half a bottle of alcoholic hand sanitizer that morning. She told news stations that she now regrets that action and that she only drank the antibacterial liquid because she “saw it sitting there.”

She told the station that she drank about half of a large bottle, which is equivalent to 32 shots of vodka. She was released on a $500 non-surety bond and is due in court on October 17^th to start her DUI trial. Wilcox isn’t the only American who has gotten in trouble for drinking hand sanitizer. Two San Fernando Valley teens were recently taken to the hospital with alcohol poisoning after they drunk the strong substance in an attempt to get drunk. As well, two homeless people in Albuquerque, New Mexico recently died after they drank a mix of distilled hand sanitizer and mouthwash.