UTICA, Minn. –A Utica driver was found lying outside his wrecked car on a remote rural road northwest of Utica. Thomas Alvin Mueller, 66, was taken 30 miles to a Rochester hospital. Deputies suspected alcohol impairment. There was a bottle of vodka in the vehicle, deputies said. Tire tracks indicated that Mueller hd lost control. overcorrected twice, went into a ditch, and struck a tree at Township Road 115 and Summit Drive. Apparently, deputies said, he had tried to drive out but was stuck. Mueller got up at one point after deputies arrived, but they said he was unstable. They placed him on a flat-board and called an ambulance. At the hospital he refused to comply with a judge’s warrant for blood and urine samples to check for impairment. Earlier at the accident scene, he had refused to blow a breath test, deputies said. Because of two previous drunken-driving convictions, deputies recommended an elevated second-degree DWI charge. They cited his blood-shot and watery eyes, body odor, slurred and short verbal responses an inability to stand without assistance.
