His SUV thudded to a halt and he told the police, ‘I’m drunk’

The thumping sound drew closer. Two Bibb County sheriff’s deputies had answered another call at a store at the west end of Rocky Creek Road in southwest Macon on Oct. 27 when they heard the noise: thump, thump, thump. The sound was coming from the bottom end of Bloomfield Road about 2 a.m. Then a green 1998 Jeep Cherokee rumbled into view. Its headlights were out and its front tires were blown. The Jeep, its windshield smashed, jumped a curb and barreled down an embankment before stopping in a grassy patch in the bend where Bloomfield meets Rocky Creek. A man stepped out of the Jeep and promptly told the deputies, “I’m drunk and shouldn’t be driving.” Then he said, “I hit something,” but he wasn’t sure what. The man, 62, smelled of alcohol and his speech was slurred, a sheriff’s report later noted. The man wasn’t sure where he was. “He thought he was on Pio Nono Avenue,” the report said, but Pio Nono is more than 2 miles away. The man was charged with DUI and driving with a suspended license.

This story was originally published November 17, 2016 at 1:00 AM with the headline "His SUV thudded to a halt and he told the police, ‘I’m drunk’."