Highest recorded blood alcohol level? Must be close?

[Jim Goose]

Cant say i have ever heard of a blood alcohol level higher then this (and survived?)

http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au...2325_news.html

Drink driver busted at life-threatening 0.408

ROANNE JOHNSON | December 21st, 2011

Kelvin Rodney Howard makes a run for it after leaving the Townsville Magistrates Court, where he lost his licence for drink driving.

CLOSE to dead is how a Townsville Magistrate has described one of the region's worst drink drivers who was lucky to have a heartbeat let alone be able to drive.

Returning a reading of .408 per cent - or more than eight times the legal limit - Kelvin Rodney Howard had been on a home brew-drinking bender on April 24 this year and only remembers waking up in intensive care after an "alcoholic black-out".

But the 43-year-old Rasmussen forklift driver amazingly managed to drive himself to a petrol station where police found him asleep and slumped behind the wheel of his banged-up car.

The embarrassed first-time offender ran from media outside the Townsville Magistrates Court yesterday after pleading guilty to one of North Queensland's worst drink-driving offences.

Townsville Regional Traffic Co-ordinator, Acting Inspector Steve Kersley said Howard was even luckier he had not killed anyone else.

"Would you want this guy driving towards your family on the road?" he said.

"I don't think so. He is absolutely stupid," Inspector Kersley said.

"Someone driving with a reading this high is not only lucky to be alive, but lucky they did not to kill another innocent road user."

Outside court, Dr Kevin Arlett said Howard was lucky to survive having such a high level of booze in his system.

"Obviously his judgment was pretty poor, he would have also been slurring his speech, unsteady on his feet and uncoordinated," he said.

"I am surprised he would have been able to drive at all.

"The fact he was found unconscious indicates his brain would have been affected by the toxicity levels which would also would have affected his breathing, heart rate, liver and kidneys."

Magistrate Peter Smid agreed, suspending Howard's licence for 12 months after hearing how the defendant was busted at the BP on Riverway Drive when police were investigating public complaints of hooning.

They didn't find any hoons - just Howard sleeping at the wheel of his damaged white Nissan Patrol wagon, his keys on the floor.

Defence lawyer Paul Gray said his client had been drinking home-brewed spirits that evening at a friend's house before he "blacked out".

"He was intending to stay at the home and even organised a room to sleep in - he doesn't even recall how he came to be driving," he said.

"The next thing he remembers is waking up in Townsville Hospital's intensive care unit with no memory."

Magistrate Smid fined Howard $2000 and recorded a traffic conviction, remarking his saving grace was that it was his first offence.

Worse still is the slap on the wrist... but here is hoping his dice with death woke him up a little bit?