Florida Highway Patrol troopers had an early and unwelcome Saturday morning on Interstate 75 in Lee County when reports came in of a southbound SUV traveling in the northbound lanes. It was 2:31 a.m., a time when the highway belongs to long-haul truckers, early risers, and apparently, at least one driver pointed in the entirely wrong direction. Troopers responded immediately, and what followed was a situation that could have ended far worse than it did.
The suspect vehicle, an SUV, was first reported near mile marker 150. Within four minutes, troopers located it seven miles down the road at mile marker 143, near the Bayshore Road exit. Seven miles of wrong-way highway travel in four minutes on an interstate in the dead of night is not a statistic worth admiring. Troopers executed a Precision Immobilization Technique to bring the vehicle to a controlled stop, rotating the SUV and ending what could easily have become a fatal encounter for anyone sharing that stretch of road.
The driver, identified as Ana Cassandra Arreola, 28, of LaBelle, was taken into custody and booked into the Lee County Jail on a charge of driving under the influence. A subsequent blood alcohol content reading came back at .161, exactly double the legal limit of .08 in Florida. That is not a close call on the breathalyzer; it is a significant degree of impairment behind the wheel of a vehicle moving at highway speed in the wrong direction…