Law enforcement and medical professionals are sending a stern reminder if you are celebrating St. Patrick's Day to make sure you have a designated driver.
Law enforcement will be stepping up drinking and driving enforcement this weekend and next for people going out and celebrating St. Patrick's Day. So far this year, the Ohio State Highway Patrol has handled 2,500 OVI incidents around the state, which is down from 2021. But medical professionals say all it takes is one bad decision to change the lives of many people by getting behind the wheel after drinking.
“Of course, all the time you see people drinking and driving and getting into car wrecks, but this time of year it tends to go up in numbers,” says Dr. Jeremy Heffner, Lima Memorial Health System. “What we definitely don’t want to see is you injure yourself and more importantly injure the people around you. Remember when you do something stupid like drinking and driving, which is a dumb thing to do, the potential is not only going to get yourself in a car wreck but potentially injure another person or kill someone else that you don’t even know, and their entire family and everybody else is hurt by that as well. So it’s not just you affected it’s all the people around us.”
With the cold temperatures expected this weekend, Heffner also wants to remind people that are celebrating that there are dangers of being exposed to the weather. He says alcohol can produce a false sense of warmth, but your body will react to the cold weather if you are not properly dressed for it.
