# BAC over 1.00?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bac-over-1-00/315270
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 2, 2005, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bac-over-1-00/315270 "2005-08-02T06:12:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2005, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bac-over-1-00/315270/1 "2005-08-02T06:12:24Z")
Out of curiosity I googled the highest recorded BAC and found that someone was once admitted to an American hospital with a BAC of 0.74. How he lived long enough to get to the emergency room, I’ve no idea, considering 0.50 is usually lethal.
But the site provided a [link](http://drugrecognition.com/drugnews.html#German) that claims a German motorist was stopped with a BAC of **4.46**. :eek:
I may have an imperfect understanding of what the BAC indicates. I thought it was decimals of a percent (i.e. 0.10 means one tenth of a percent). Did that dude really have four and a half percent alcohol in his blood, or is it figured differently in Germany? The link also states that the legal limit in that location is 0.50, what would actually kill a person.
Is 4.5% BAC even possible?
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### Author:  [@MartinL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MartinL)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2005, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bac-over-1-00/315270/2 "2005-08-02T09:40:20Z")
In Europe, BAC is measured in one-tenth of a percent.
Interestingly, nearly every major European language except English seems to have a word for that unit of measurement (something like “promille” meaning “one-thousandth”, compare “percent” meaning “one-hundredth”).
So the BAC of 4.46 reported in Germany would be 0.446 for you.
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### Author:  [@St.Urho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St.Urho)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2005, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bac-over-1-00/315270/3 "2005-08-02T12:34:18Z")
Also, it’s important to realize that a BAC of 0.50 doesn’t result in instant death. With practice it’s possible to tolerate much higher BACs.
[anecdote]As part of my paramedic clinicals, we did a rotation in detox. One patient was brought in by police, talking normally and walking under his own power. His BAC was 0.498![/anecdote]
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### Author:  [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2005, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bac-over-1-00/315270/4 "2005-08-02T14:27:49Z")
English has per mil: ‰. It just isn’t used much. Doctors use milligrams/deciliter, which is parts per 100,000, more or less. BTW, if he really were at 4.5%, his blood would have been as strong as beer! Well, probably not German beer.😛
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2005, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bac-over-1-00/315270/5 "2005-08-02T15:17:35Z")
\ Units, people, units! \
Numbers are meaningless unless they have units and other necessary contextual information.
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### Author:  [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2005, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bac-over-1-00/315270/6 "2005-08-02T15:22:30Z")
That makes a bit more sense for it to be .446%. What a pansy. He couldn’t even get a 0.5. Go America! We’re Number One!!
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2005, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bac-over-1-00/315270/7 "2005-08-02T15:49:50Z")
> [@St. Urho](#):
>
> Also, it’s important to realize that a BAC of 0.50 doesn’t result in instant death. With practice it’s possible to tolerate much higher BACs.
About 13 years ago I responded to a call of a youth passed out on a lawn. It turned out to be a 15 year old who slammed an entire litre of Jack Daniels. His BAC turned out to be .54 :eek:
He lived.