Mom Charged With Drunken Driving After 8-Year-Old Son Calls 911

VANCOUVER, Wash. – A woman has been arrested for investigation of drunken driving and other charges following repeated calls to 911 from her 8-year-old son, who was in the car, Clark County sheriff's deputies said.

Paulette Lynn Spears, 33, who lives in the Minnehaha area east of Vancouver, was arrested Saturday evening after she drove to a fire station and said she had a medical problem. Guided by her son's description of what he could see from the car, as well as by global positioning technology to track the phone calls, deputies arrived less than a minute later.

Emergency dispatchers received a report of a four-door Nissan sedan being driven erratically four minutes before the first call from her son, sheriff's Sgt. Randon M. Walker said.

"He said 'I don't know where we are, and Mom's not acting normal,"' Walker said.

As the operator began asking the boy for landmarks and the direction the car was traveling, Walker said, Spears took the cellular telephone from the boy, told the dispatcher not to worry and hung up.

The boy called back, and again his mother cut short the call, Walker said.

"The mother kept interrupting the 8-year-old," he said. "It happened at least twice."

At one point, Walker said, Spears apparently bit the boy's hand to get the telephone away from him.

The boy and a younger child, 5, who was also in the car, were placed with an aunt. As of Monday, Spears remained in jail for investigation of drunken driving, two counts of reckless endangerment and assault of a child. Records show she has at least one conviction for drunken driving.