That's what you would expect. With the blood being less than LOQ, limit of quantitation, which is extremely low depending on the testing performed, probably with gas chromatography and mass spec detection. This testing is capable of detection below microgram per deciliter of blood. To put that in perspective, it is common to detect cocaine on dollar bills in the parts per trillion amount, literally picograms.


Any decent employment lawyer would be able to keep the persons job with a blood test below LOQ. The handheld breath test given at the time is useless and a reading of 0.046 is well proven to be inaccurate from these devices. The BAC could have been 0.000 or 0.080 and the machine spits out that number. Further the donor may be diabetic, which often causes people to produce ketones that are expelled from the mouth, and has a very sweet smell much like alcohol. Further ketones will cause a breathalyzer to quantitate a number, as the machine is non specifics and detects all aldehydes, ketones and alcohol groups.

As far as denying to give blood, never ever give blood without a search warrant. Never ever.. Never ever give blood until you have consulted with a lawyer. Never ever give blood unless a second sample is taken at the same time that can be examined at a laboratory of your choice. I would not trust my future life to some laboraties as many of them are incompetent.