DWI’s often involve at least a small crash. Or perhaps they noticed him driving erratically, stopped him, found him to be very drunk, and had an ambulance take him to the hospital. At the very least, I would think a trip to the hospital would be needed for a blood alcohol test (though not $4500 for just that, I hope!). But if somebody was seriously drunk — i.e. just too drunk to be safely stuck in the holding pen at the local jail or police precinct, I would think sending the perp to the hospital for a while would be standard practice. Look what happened to that alcoholic relative of the Gotbaums who was detained at an airport after a drunken rage, and was found dead a few minutes later.
Yeah. But the hospital bill was several years ago.
If you really want to know the timeline, here it is:
Niccole Smith divorced her previous husband around Feb. 2002.
The hospital sued David Spears for $4,300 in June 2003.
Not quite 2 years after that (April 2005), Niccole Smith sued David Spears for child support, and it was made retroactive to January 2005.
Spears appears to have married Colleen around late 2004 (”3 years” ago).
Spears was arrested for DWI in February of this year.
So the hospital lawsuit has nothing to do with the February DWI. It’s all speculation, but $4,300 sounds about right to me for the cost of a labor and delivery in a rural Missouri hospital... and it fits in with the timeline.
I’m guessing (ONLY a guess here) that Spears and Smith got together around the time Smith and her husband split. If they promptly had a baby, that would fit the hospital timeline (assuming he was recognized as the responsible party for the financial liability to the hospital). Then, around January of 2005, they split and Spears got together with and married (then or a bit later) his present wife.
Amazing what you can find out (and also speculate about) on the web...