DUI suspect conks out in eatery’s drive-thru lane

Someone was blocking the drive-thru lane at a north Macon Zaxby’s restaurant on a Saturday night earlier this month. The person, a 39-year-old man, hadn’t just wandered into the lane on foot. He was passed out at the wheel of a black Dodge Ram. The truck was still running but the way it was parked, just past the pick-up window, kept cars behind it from reaching the window. A Bibb County sheriff’s deputy showed up at the Northside Drive eatery and soon determined that the man in the truck was out cold. The deputy’s write-up of the Oct. 8 incident said that he “very loudly called out for (the man) several times in an effort to wake him. However, that was unsuccessful. As I peered both into the vehicle and over (the man) to look for any signs of injury, contraband or dangerous objects, I observed two items in plain view.” Those items: a prescription pill bottle and, in the truck’s cup holder, a Bud Light. The deputy called for an ambulance and began giving the man what is known as a sternum rub, a test for unconsciousness, to rouse him. “Almost immediately, (the man) began to reach for the gear shift,” the deputy wrote in his report. “Fearing (he) might attempt to drive away while still disoriented, I asked him to turn the vehicle off.” The man did. The report said he told the deputy that he had “simply fallen asleep” on his way to pick up his daughter and refill his blood-pressure medicine. The man figured he’d been at the Zaxby’s for 10 minutes at the most, but a restaurant employee said it was more like half an hour. The driver, whose speech was said to be “slurred and mostly unintelligible,” was “unsteady on his feet” and when he tried to walk, “his knees buckled,” the deputy’s report said. The man was jailed on a DUI charge.

This story was originally published October 26, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "DUI suspect conks out in eatery’s drive-thru lane."