‘I could cry right now thinking about it’: Sober drivers are being arrested for DUI statewide

HAYWOOD COUNTY, Tenn. (WSMV) - Within moments of starting his field sobriety test last November, Henry Esslinger told state troopers he wanted to stop.

Body camera footage from his arrest shows on November 23, 2023, Esslinger explains why.

“I feel very lightheaded. Not very well. Full of adrenaline from being in an accident,” Esslinger said in the video.

Esslinger tells police in the video that he doesn’t know why his brakes failed, sending his truck smashing into a tractor trailer.

At first, he agrees to take a field sobriety test after troopers note he has slurred speech and glassy eyes.

But after undergoing a horizontal gaze assessment, Esslinger said he’d prefer to have his blood tested to prove he was sober.

“I feel very shaky right now from the adrenaline,” he said.

“Are you willing to give blood?” asks a trooper.

“Yeah, I’ll give blood, I’ll do a breathalyzer, I’ll do whatever,” Esslinger responds. “Man, I haven’t drank nothing.”

After being taken by ambulance to a hospital, Esslinger had his blood taken and was promptly arrested for DUI.

Esslinger’s blood test results from the TBI would later show he was completely sober at the time of his arrest.

“What’s it like to be charged with a crime you didn’t commit?” WSMV4 Investigates asked.

“It doesn’t feel good at all,” Esslinger said.

But unlike the other cases uncovered by WSMV4 Investigates of sober drivers being arrested for DUI in Middle Tennessee, Esslinger was arrested in West Tennessee, in Haywood County near Memphis.

A recent WSMV4 Investigation found 609 people have been arrested for DUI between 2017 and 2023 in Tennessee whose bloodwork showed neither alcohol nor drugs.

WSMV4 Investigates continues to find drivers both inside and outside Middle Tennessee who knew they were innocent but sent to jail anyway.

On August 9, 2019, Reid Hawley and his wife were returning from dinner when he was stopped as part of a DUI checkpoint in Sevier County near Knoxville.

Hawley admitted that he’d had a drink with dinner but had eaten a meal as well.

A state trooper documented in Hawley’s arrest report that he showed several clues of impairment and performer poorly on the field sobriety test.

Hawley said he was given a breathalyzer and remembers seeing the printout of his results. “The bottom line was it was all zeros. And (the trooper) showed it to me, and it was all zeros. And I said ‘Oh really, you think you want to let me go now?’ And he said, ‘No, you’re under the influence of something.’”

Five months later, Hawley’s blood test showed prescribed medication in his system, but no illegal drugs.

Having to pay his attorney more than $7,000, Hawley said once the charge was dismissed, he learned he also had to pay for court costs. “Paid the clerk another $350. The trooper and another trooper were just standing there and I said, ‘Are you happy now?’ I said, ‘Did you see what you did, what you cost me? Are you going to reimburse me, is the state going to reimburse me?’ He just snubbed me, looked at me like garbage, and walked down the hall.”

Nate Collins can commiserate. In Marion County, outside of Chattanooga, he too was stopped as part of a DUI checkpoint in 2023.

Collins said he misunderstood a trooper’s motions and sped up when he should have slowed down.

He agreed to do a field sobriety test but said he was so nervous, he performed poorly.

Collins was arrested for DUI in possession of a handgun.

“It was terrifying. I thought, it was so surreal, knowing that I was innocent,” Colins said.

“What did it do to your life to get this DUI charge?” asked WSMV4 Investigates.

“I didn’t get into grad school. They couldn’t tell me why for legal reasons, but I do think that (it was because) I had pending drunk charges,” Collins said.

Like the others, Collins bloodwork came back showing he had neither drugs nor alcohol in his system. WSMV4 Investigates told him about the TBI data showing he is among the 609 people charged with DUI who were sober.

“It still devastated me. It’s still something I’m working through now. And I think about 608 other people to have gone through that? To maybe not have the resources that I had? If I’m honest, I could cry right now thinking about it,” Collins said.

If this has happened to you or there’s something you want us to know about, please email Jeremy.Finley@wsmv.com.

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