A 68-year-old Villager was arrested early Tuesday morning on a charge of driving under the influence after she was found asleep in her running SUV with the gear shift in “Drive.”
A Sumter County sheriff’s deputy was called at 1:23 a.m. Tuesday to the train tracks at County Road 172 in Oxford where another driver had noticed a Honda CRV had been parked along the tracks for nearly 30 minutes. That driver contacted the sheriff’s office.
The deputy found Philomena Marie Bowen asleep in the vehicle with its engine running. Her foot was on the brake. The deputy knocked on the window and woke up Bowen, according to the arrest report. Bowen told the deputy she had consumed one and a half rum and Cokes.
There was some damage to her vehicle and Bowen later told the deputy she had driven from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa on Interstate 75 and had collided with some orange construction cones, the arrest report indicated.
She provided two breath samples, each registering a blood alcohol content of .37, according to the arrest report.
She was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center on $1,000.
