State police weigh in on blood case

STAUNTON – Discarded blood evidence from a driver in a fatal crash could have been saved through a court order, a prosecutor said.

Because a state trooper assumed hospitals automatically check blood-alcohol levels, three tubes of blood taken from Dale Michael Pleasants, 31, of Waynesboro, wound up being tossed out by Augusta Health, authorities and hospital officials said.

That quashed any chances of learning whether Pleasants drove while intoxicated in the October 2008 wreck that killed Steven Patrick Henry, 29, of Stuarts Draft, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Rupen Shah said.

The case, which has sparked fingerpointing and confusion for more than a year, prompted Shah in March 2009 to appeal to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

“My goal was to investigate thoroughly,” Shah said. “We had full faith in the state trooper’s ability, but in this case I saw a special need for help.”

Pleasants is accused of felony reckless driving. Police say he drove without a license with a lengthy record of traffic violations when he rammed his truck into a pickup along Route 340.

Augusta Health emergency room staff drew three tubes of blood from Pleasants while treating him for injuries before crews transported him to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, court records show. State police said the tubes were delivered to U.Va along with Pleasants.

According to officials at U.Va. and Augusta Health, Trooper Aaron Tucker Coffey never requested they test Pleasants’ blood-alcohol content during his trip to their emergency rooms.

“If a person comes in and a request is made by law enforcement to take a blood sample, we’ll test it for alcohol,” said David Foreman, spokesman for U.Va. Health System. “They have to ask for it.”

But state police First Sgt. Scott VanLear said in his experience hospitals test blood for alcohol levels as a matter of practice.

“Anytime you go to an emergency room for treatment they’re going to get a blood sample for testing,” said VanLear, who, like Coffey, is a member of Virginia State Police Division 3. “That is the typical information that we request from hospitals and the information was not available to us this time.”

State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said state law mandates a three-hour time frame after crashes for a trooper to request or extract blood samples to test a person’s blood-alcohol content.

Coffey missed that window because he was notifying Henry’s family, Geller said. In order to fulfill other duties, investigating officers can rely on other troopers to notify families, VanLear said.

Under the law, troopers have three hours to collect blood for testing the level of alcohol in a driver’s system without a court order. Having missed that deadline, Coffey could have obtained a court order for the tubes of blood already drawn from Pleasants, Shah said.

Acting on information from Coffey, five days after the crash Shah issued a subpoena to U.Va. for “any and all medical records” and “blood analysis” reports. In return, the hospital sent more than 100 pages of records, none of which included reports on the alcohol level in Pleasants’ bloodstream.

Augusta Health spokeswoman Vicki Kirby denied state police claims that Pleasants’ blood was sent from Augusta Health to U.Va. As a matter of policy, Augusta Health would keep the tubes for seven days before hospital staff discarded the blood, Kirby said. The hospital discards blood if officials receive no requests for tests from law enforcement or physicians, she said.

Court records show no subpoena for blood samples at Augusta Health. Shah said the trooper never indicated a subpoena should be sent to Augusta Health. By the time prosecutors sent the subpoena to U.Va., just two days remained before Augusta Health’s deadline to discard blood.

Less than two weeks after Shah wrote a letter to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation about the case, Special Agent Dino Cappuzzo assisted Coffey in an interview with officials at U.Va., VanLear said.

VanLear said it was the second time in 22 years as a trooper he’s seen a BCI investigator work a fatal crash case.

VanLear would not address specific questions about Cappuzzo’s work with the case, but said hospital officials told the state police they should have requested a blood test. The subpoena asked for test results that didn’t exist, they said.

“They’ve tested millions of times before this case and dozens of times after,” VanLear said. “Why not this time, I don’t know.”

Foreman said U.Va. doesn’t test the blood-alcohol level for “anyone who walks in the door,” and that physicians often make the call on whether to test.

“A [blood alcohol level] would potentially be done if the treating physician felt it was necessary to treat correctly,” he said.

Another Virginia hospital, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, operates under a similar policy. According to VCU spokesman Joe Kuttenkuler, physicians will test blood-alcohol levels without specific requests in cases of severe trauma where the patient is unconscious or if they have reason to believe the patient suffers from alcohol problems.

“It can’t be a mild trauma,” Kuttenkuler said. “It has to be a more severe situation where a [blood alcohol level] is drawn.”

Medical records show Pleasants fought with Augusta Health emergency room crews and required sedation before they airlifted him to U.Va. The next day he told a doctor, “I feel pretty good right now,” records show.

Hospital officials say the top priority is treating patients.

“Hospitals are in a strange situation here because they temporarily hold criminal evidence and they’re not keepers of evidence,” said Dana Schrad, director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police.

Scheduled to submit a legal brief in less than two weeks in Pleasants’ case, Shah said he hopes to see changes and improvements in future cases.

“We are not in the blame game,” he said. “This is about finding mistakes and knowing how to fix them.”

Responsible for prosecuting cases in a county that includes the intersection of two major interstates, Shah said he’d like the Virginia State Police to start a specialized task force for handling crash fatalities.

“In Augusta County fatalities are happening routinely,” the prosecutor said. “Those issues need to be seen a little differently. I’ll be happy to work with anyone to create that task force.”

Staunton and Waynesboro police said their departments handle all traffic fatalities as homicides until deemed otherwise. Police from both jurisdictions said they send up to two investigators to crash scenes to assist officers with documentation and casework.

VanLear said Trooper Coffey handled the case appropriately.

“You’re there first of all to save lives and protect lives, after that you get to securing the scene,” he said.

When asked if Coffey failed at securing all evidence in the case, VanLear replied:

“Did he fail? Yes, Trooper Coffey failed in getting the blood alcohol level tested, but it weren’t for lack of trying.”

Pleasants is scheduled to appear Aug. 2 before Judge Victor V. Ludwig. Since November 2008, the case has been continued more than six times.

Clarification
Authorities, rather than an accident report, stated that Dale Michael Pleasants, 31, of Waynesboro, was driving with an open container in a fatal October 2008 crash. Information in a story Friday on Page A1 was incorrect.