First Choice Drug Testing offers after hours drug and alcohol testing 24/7, 365 days a year. We have a dedicated staff of part-time collectors that rotate being “on call” so that our clients receive services for those emergency after hours testing needs, which is most often post-accident or reasonable suspicion testing. We average about 5 after hour call outs a week. Very few competitors offer these services and those that do are not always reliable, hence we are known as the “go to” vendor for afterhours services.

It’s quite difficult to staff these positions because the calls come at all hours of the night and weekend. We pay handsomely to attempt to attract top talent. We have many apply, and most make it through the 40+ hours of training, only to realize that after being on call just a week or two they were not “cut out” for, the position.

We were training a recent recruit for on call; first we do the urine collection training then we move onto breath alcohol training. Our training consists of studying materials, taking tests, shadowing a trained collector, and doing “mock” scenarios. To do a “mock” breath alcohol positive test, we keep a bottle of whiskey around, we can inhale the fumes from the whisky bottle, blow into the breath alcohol test machine (aka EBT), and simulate a positive alcohol test.

We finished the recruit’s urine collection training one afternoon and let her know we’d start alcohol training first thing in the morning. We agreed on a 9am start time. Next morning we started the “mock” alcohol training as soon as she arrived, we always first do a couple of “mock” negative test before we move to a “mock” positive test. We prepared the EBT and simulated the first test on our recruit, problem is she did not blow negative, nor had she inhaled any fumed from our whiskey bottle!!!

This recruit showed up to do alcohol training and blew a .078 blood alcohol concertation at 9 am in the morning!! The employee doing the training was shocked, he came running into managements office to show them what the recruit registered on the EBT. Management instructed the trainer to follow testing protocol and wait 15 minutes and have her test again. The 15-minute wait is to make sure there is no residual alcohol in the recruit’s mouth from things like mouthwash, hand sanitizer etc. 15 minutes allows any residual alcohol that may be present to dissipate so the second test is truly only measuring alcohol that is transferring from the blood into the breath through the lungs which can only happen by consuming alcohol.

The 2nd test confirmed at .074 blood alcohol concentration. Management informed the recruit the training was over, and the job offer was rescinded. She responded by saying “what’s the matter alcohol is legal”. With that mentality I don’t think she would be a good fit, do you? Drug & alcohol abuse affects every type of industry; it is indiscriminate.