Initially I just tweeted this story out and was prepared to leave it at that, but the longer I allow it to turn itself about in my brain the stronger the urge becomes to memorialize the stupidity at work here because sometimes, the simplest mistakes are also the dumbest mistakes.
I do not have asthma. I know people who do, but generally it isn’t something we talk about. I say this in order to make it clear that I have no firsthand understanding of the sorts of limitations that asthma can potentially put on a person. But from the little I do know, I can imagine that it might make certain tasks difficult at best and impossible at worst. Tasks such as blowing into a tube, like the ones connected to those breath testing devices the police have, for instance. They make you blow fairly hard into those things as I understand it, so perhaps it’s reasonable that asthma might make it hard for a sufferer to comply if asked.
Adam Horn at least thought that far ahead when he found himself in just such a situation. I don’t want to see anyone skate on an impaired driving charge he deserves, but good job, buddy. Credit where it’s due.
But then. Oh then.
Adam Horn, pulled over in Waterloo just after midnight on March 18, 2015, smelled of alcohol, his trial heard. An OPP officer asked him to blow into a tube connected to an alcohol screening device.
Horn’s cheeks were “sucked in” and the officer heard no sounds of air and no tone from the device. Three more attempts were made with the same result.
When Horn, 28, was arrested, “he threw his head back in exasperation,” Justice Gary Hearn said on Thursday. The police officer quoted Horn as saying, “Come on, I have asthma.”
“The officer noted Mr. Horn had no struggles with breathing or talking,” Hearn said.The asthma allegation is not supported by evidence and is “self-serving in the extreme,” the judge said. “There’s nothing to indicate that that issue, if it was an issue at all, compromised Mr. Horn’s ability to provide a proper sample.
“Indeed, shortly after that comment was made, Mr. Horn requested and was given permission to have a cigarette, which he did without apparent difficulty.”
Jesus, you idiot. I want my credit back. I mean come on, man.
He was convicted of failing/refusing to provide a breath sample, fined $1,000 and banned from driving for a year. Assuming he’s similar to others I’ve met in his position, he should be able to bitch about it all with minimal effort, asthma or no asthma.