Just a little alcohol level education... ya'll are getting your decimal places wrong. .08 is the definition of drunk in Michigan (and many states, some are still at .10). I had read that hers was .43.
45 states and the District of Columbia have a .08 BAC per se law —AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CT, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MS, MT, ND, NE, NH, NM, NC, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WI and WY. (Updated: Nov. 20th, 2003)
5 states still define intoxicated driving as .10 BAC per se -- the most lenient definition of drunk driving in the industrialized world.
Some info from an alcohol awareness website:
Blood Alcohol Level Affect On Body
0.02 Slight mood changes
0.06 Lowered inhibition, impaired judgement, decreased rational decision-making abilities.
0.08 Legally drunk, deterioration of reaction time and control.
0.15 Impaired balance, movement, and coordination. Difficulty standing, walking, talking.
0.20 Decreased pain and sensation. Erratic emotions.
0.30 Diminished reflexes. Semi-consciousness.
0.40 Loss of consciousness. Very limited reflexes. Anesthetic effects.
0.50 Death.
Caution
Death has been documented to occur at levels as low as 0.35. Remember, each person is different.
Also, the absence of symptoms does not guarantee safe or low blood alcohol levels. With regular drinking a person develops a tolerance to alcohol that will reduce the outward appearance of high blood alcohol levels.
http://www.radford.edu/~kcastleb/bac.html
chart of drinks to blood alcohol level
According to the chart above, a woman had 10 drinks in a short period of time, and weighed between 100 and 120 would be around .43
I think comments in the articles about this being out of character for her are naive. Alcohol deaths occur at all colleges and universities, even those who only take the "cream of the crop" students with very high GPAs and outstanding high school records and those schools all have students who binge drink to dangerous levels. Not only "bad people" or "bad students" binge drink.
I do think they are jumping to conclusions that she was served alchohol at the house. BAC continues to rise after you stop drinking because the alcohol is still being processed through your system.
Dee