How can belching, vomiting, or hiccups affect my BAC?

How can belching, vomiting, or hiccups affect my BAC?

Neil Shouse (Defense Attorney) gives expert video advice on: What are 'chemical tests' as they are used in a DUI arrest?; What is the 'implied consent law'?; When does a motorist have the right to refuse a chemical test during a DUI arrest? and more...

Belching, vomiting, hiccups, and also acid reflux gurd, can affect your BAC level by causing a falsely high reading. The reason is that the breath machines are designed to measure deep lung alcohol or alcohol from the deep lung tissue, that is to say alcohol that's been digested, absorbed and delivered into the deep lung tissue. However, when we burp and we belch, when we hiccup, if we have acid reflux what happens is semi digested alcohol can be regurgitated from the stomach into the throat and blown into the breath machine, and as a result it is measuring mouth alcohol at a much higher concentration, as opposed to deep lung tissue alcohol, which is thought to correlate to blood alcohol level. So somebody in this situation could blow a .15 BAC for example, when their true blood alcohol level is only a .05.