BY BETH VELLIQUETTE

bvelliquette@heraldsun.com

HILLSBOROUGH -- Ted Triebel, a member of the Orange County Board of Education, was found guilty Monday in Orange County District Court of driving while impaired after he was involved in a single-car accident last November.

Triebel, 68, was driving from Durham on Guess Road to his home in northeastern Orange County on Nov. 5, 2008, about 8:40 p.m. when his car ran off the right side of the road, hit a mailbox, went into a ditch, rolled over and crashed into a tree.

N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper Mark Melvin, who investigated the wreck, testified that when he arrived at the scene, Triebel was already inside an ambulance. When Melvin stepped into the ambulance to talk to Triebel, Melvin said he smelled the strong odor of alcohol.

He asked Triebel if he had been drinking, and Triebel told him he had had one glass of wine. The ambulance then transported Triebel to the Duke Hospital for treatment, Melvin said.

At the hospital, Melvin asked the nurse to draw blood to be analyzed for alcohol content.

Two SBI laboratory workers appeared in court to testify about the chain of custody of the blood samples and the results of the analysis.

Four tests showed that Triebel's blood alcohol level was above .08. Under state law, driving with a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher is considered driving while impaired.

One of the lab technicians testified that it is procedure to round test results down, so his test results were rounded down to 08.

As an example of rounding down, a test might have shown his blood alcohol was .0887, and the number would have been rounded down to .08.

The defense raised questions about the chain of custody of the blood samples and whether the blood test was taken within two hours after the accident.

Assistant District Attorney Jeff Nieman argued that the blood was always in the custody at the SBI lab, even if it didn't remain in the custody of one person the whole time.

He also argued that the blood was drawn within the two-hour time period.

Orange-Chatham District Court Judge Joe Buckner found Triebel guilty of the charge of driving while impaired, but almost apologized for doing so.

Two days after his wreck, Triebel's son, Tobin, 39, was killed as he was jogging along the side of the road near his father's home when a tree-trimming truck hit him.

Tobin Triebel was a member of the Maryland State Police and worked as a supervisor of the training section at the Aviation Headquarters. He was a licensed flight paramedic.

Ted Triebel was a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War and was taken prisoner in North Vietnam, where he was held as prisoner of war for seven months in 1972 and 1973.

Buckner, who throughout the day had been giving DWI defendants talks about driving while impaired, said he wasn't going to lecture Triebel, saying that sometimes social drinkers make mistakes but it doesn't mean they're not good people.

Buckner offered his sympathy for Triebel's son's death and thanked him for his service to the country and the community.

Buckner sentenced Triebel to 10 days in jail, but suspended the sentence and placed Triebel on unsupervised probation for one year.

He gave Triebel limited driving privileges and ordered Triebel to perform 24 hours of community service, pay court costs and various fees.

After the hearing, a number of N.C. Highway Patrol troopers, including Melvin and a trooper who had helped Tobin Triebel at his accident, talked to Triebel outside of the courtroom and offered their sympathies.