Teen calls 911 from back seat to report mom driving drunk

BLISSFIELD, Michigan (WTVG) - Officers with decades of experience say they’ve never heard a 9-1-1 call like this: “Hi, my mom is drunk driving crazy as (expletive) with me and my little brother in the car. We don’t feel safe at all. Like, we need somebody to come find us.”

The call came in Monday, October 17, at about 6:00 PM. The caller was a 17-year-old girl who was in the backseat with her 15-year-old brother. Her mother was behind the wheel. The girl said her mother was driving drunk.

Dispatchers stayed on the line with the girl roughly 10 minutes as she described her location along U.S. 223 passing through Blissfield.

“The vehicle was actually going over the lines and actually almost hit another car next to it, and it came over the double yellow lines twice and almost caused a head-on collision twice,” said Officer Thomas Anton with Blissfield Police. He intercepted the vehicle on the West side of town within minutes.

Officer Anton says the 45-year-old woman behind the wheel was from Adrian. Officers took her to the Lenawee County Jail where they say she blew twice the legal limit.

“They were quite scared when mom was driving down the road drunk. They were scared for mom’s safety and for theirs, so they called 911 to make sure that, in fact, the daughter said that they saved mom’s life,” added Officer Anton.

A man in the passenger’s seat, described as the woman’s friend, drove the kids to their grandmother’s house where they were released into her custody.

As of Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022, the woman was not formally arraigned, so officers had not yet released her identity. She’s expected to face a misdemeanor charge of Operating While Impaired.

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Please include the title when you click here to report it.

Copyright 2022 WTVG. All rights reserved.