Yes, you read correctly. Low-speed car chase. Not something you see in the news too often, right?Jacob Kells (30) is from Santa Rosa, CA. He has diabetes. Last Thursday, Kells got behind the wheel of a rented U-Haul truck. Oh, what a bad idea. He was obviously having low blood sugar issues because he caused several minor hit-and-run crashes that morning. Kells would not respond to police calls for him to pull over. Result: the cops had to tail him all, slowly, all the way from Redwood City to Gilroy.
When the police finally caught up with him, Kells was reportedly sweating and incoherent. The officers, obviously aware his state was diabetes-related, gave him glucose paste then got him to hospital, pronto. He was later arrested and taken in for psychological assessment - which I guess means there may be something else going on here other than low blood sugar.
Hats off to the officers of the Redwood City California Highway Patrol for recognizing the signs of low blood sugar and reacting accordingly. That is, for understanding the medical basis for Kells' behavior - not assuming the guy was just drunk or high.
1. Diane--
I've tried for years to encourage our "named" charities (JDRF, ADA) to put on an educational campaign with some of our charitable contributions alerting federal, state, county and municpal law enforcement officers, as well as ALL first responders, that diabetes should be foremost in their minds when pulling someone over for traffic violations or when at the scene of a traffic accident that appears to have a non-sensical basis. Many diabetics are in jail today because low blood sugar caused them to harm someone else. This travesty is being overlooked by our charities because they do not want to admit today's guidelines and insulins are dangerous.
Posted at 11:50AM on Aug 29th 2007 by Melody