Gary Faller

“we do not want to use an alcohol swab to clean the area before the blood draw.”

Faller identified the hospital's stated contamination precaution for an alcohol test.

“We don't make any conversions in a hospital.”

Faller distinguished the hospital's reported plasma result from an official whole-blood conversion.

“So with any test, there can be interferences, and I'm sure there can be interferences with the forensic way of testing, as well.”

Faller acknowledged that testing methods can have interferences while explaining the hospital laboratory's safeguards.

“But, in this case, there were no flags.”

Faller gave his conclusion that the reported result in Ms. Read's chart was not flagged for the interferences he described.

“One of the major things we need to do when taking somebody's blood for alcohol is to obviously not use an alcohol swab.”

Preemptively addresses potential defense challenge about contamination of the blood sample

“Also, in the emergency room, my supervisor pretty much removed probably 95% of all the alcohol swabs.”

Shows the hospital took systemic precautions against false positives in alcohol testing

“So when it was ordered, it was 9:03 in the morning.”

States the recorded time the blood test was ordered: 9:03 a.m.

“93 milligrams per deciliter.”

The reported hospital blood alcohol result.

“We've never had the forensic accreditation, but we have very good quality lab results, which I could go into further.”

Concedes the lab lacks forensic accreditation while attempting to defend the quality of results.

“Correct. And that's because lactic acid or LDH actually forms NADH.”

Faller explained that, in theory, high LDH or lactic acid can form NADH in a serum or plasma test system; in his preceding qualification, he said false positives could result when LDH or lactic acid was markedly elevated.

“No, no, we don't. No.”

Admits the lab did not consider Read's anemia or multiple sclerosis when running the alcohol test.

“The conversion factor is anywhere from 1.1 to 1.18 — it could be 18% or 11% higher in serum versus whole blood — but we don't do it.”

Faller described a serum-to-whole-blood conversion range under which a whole-blood equivalent would generally be lower than the serum result; he said his lab does not perform the conversion and deferred to experts.

“But the results, based on this study of 600 multiple sclerosis patients — two big centers in Italy and one in the Netherlands — show that the highest level of lactic acid in the MS patients did not achieve — didn't get close.”

Faller testified that the cited MS study's highest lactic acid level was not high enough to interfere with the result.

“And also interestingly, we can see the labs that are using headspace gas chromatography. And out of interest, we can see how we compare, and we have exactly the same results on these proficiency testings.”

Faller testified that, in the proficiency testing he described, his lab had the same results as labs using headspace gas chromatography.