A Real Wingding of a Conference! The Joint SAFS, MAAFS, MAFS, and CSFS Meeting at Orlando

The title of the half-day workshop that my colleagues Rob Langille, Daryl Mayers and I conducted was “The Forensic Alcohol Toxicology of Drinking Drivers: Its Time to put the Forensic Back Into Forensic Alcohol Toxicology.” The main theme was that too many studies cited in court and journals were based on unrealistic conditions that did not match the actual drinking and driving that occurred in the field. As forensic scientists, we believed that laboratory conditions should reflect real-world drinking patterns.

For example, a typical drinking scenario used under laboratory conditions is the consumption of 1 g/kg alcohol neat on an empty stomach within 10 to 20 minutes. This is highly unrealistic and causes unusual blood/breath alcohol ratios, time to maximum BACs, and mouth alcohol effects that are not seen in the field in actual drinking drivers. In the field, the typical drinking driver consumes mainly beer over a period of several hours, which results in a much shorter time to maximum BAC. This distinction between laboratory and field conditions was critical for forensic scientists who testify in court.

Our workshop synopsis summarized the key topics we covered:

• Characteristics of the drinking driver – drinking patterns, type of beverage consumed, social vs alcohol-dependent drinking
• Pharmacokinetics of the drinking driver – absorption characteristics, rates of elimination, and effects of trauma
• Forensic aspects of breath alcohol testing – duration of mouth alcohol effect, blood in the mouth, gastro-esophageal reflux disease, specificity of breath alcohol analysis, and the blood/breath alcohol ratio

The evaluation of our workshop by the attendees was very satisfying. It made all our work worthwhile. For forensic scientists, there is no greater reward than sharing knowledge with colleagues who will apply it in their own practice.

Whenever I checked the weather channel on TV throughout the conference, Hurricane Jeanne seemed to be hovering off the coast – until the conference was finished on Friday September 24th, 2004. Many people would be taking planes back home on Saturday September 25th, 2004, when it made a beeline for the Florida coast and Orlando. The Orlando airport was closed at 6:00 pm on Saturday, and all planes flew out of its path.

Hurricane Jeanne was one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes on record, producing damaging floods in Haiti and the last of four hurricanes to impact Florida in the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. It had already killed over 3,000 people in Haiti before making landfall in Florida. For the forensic scientists at the conference, the approaching storm added an element of urgency to travel plans.

Daryl Mayers, who flew on Air Canada, was able to fly out. But we were notified that JetsGo would not be flying due to the hurricane and that we could get a flight out of Orlando by JetsGo one week later. Good luck!

Rob Langille, biologists Elida Kafarowski, Alexandra Welsh, and myself had been booked on JetsGo by the Centre of Forensic Sciences to save money. It turns out that JetsGo was JetsNoGo. So the four of us who took JetsGo decided to rent a car in Orlando and drive to Atlanta, then fly from there back home to Toronto. This was not the plan any forensic scientists had anticipated.

The drive from Orlando to Atlanta was somewhat surrealistic. The highways had all the toll booths open, flashing lights and gates up to allow faster evacuation. The traffic was heavy but moving quickly. It was great putting more and more distance between us and the hurricane. We made it to Atlanta after a long drive and flew back to Toronto the next day. It probably cost the lab about 3X that amount that we would have saved by taking JetsGo instead of Air Canada. Needless to say, JetsGo eventually declared bankruptcy.

“The most important and productive outcome of a scientific conference is the collaboration that happens in the hallways, not the presentation in the main room.” – Anon, Goodreads.

The 2004 Orlando conference reminded me of this truth. Yes, the workshop was valuable. Yes, the presentations were informative. But the real value for forensic scientists lies in the connections made between sessions – the conversations over coffee, the shared experiences, and the friendships that last a lifetime. And sometimes, the most memorable part of a conference is not the science at all, but the adventure of getting home safely.