Police in Pierce County, Washington, arrested a woman multiple times this month for driving while using whippets, or laughing gas.
Prosecutors in the county, south of Seattle, put out two $50,000 DUI warrants for the suspect’s arrest Monday as “a high-risk danger to the community” after the string of whippets-related incidents, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said. The office did not name the 46-year-old suspect arrested Wednesday.
Whippets, or nitrous oxide, can be used recreationally as a sedative that induces hallucinogenic and euphoric effects in users, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The woman’s first arrest prior to the warrants was on Nov. 12, when deputies found her doing whippets in the backseat of her idling car without any clothes on below the waist, and she was arrested for physical control since she could drive.
On Nov. 15, the woman crashed her car into a Fircrest, Washington, power box, toppling a power pole and totaling her car, which was full of whippet cans. The Fircrest Police Department arrested her for DUI and first-degree malicious mischief.
On Nov. 20, a witness said they saw her slumped in her car, surrounded by used whippet cans. Pierce County deputies arrested her on probable cause for DUI before she could leave the parking lot where she was spotted.
The woman got back on the road within 24 hours after posting bail following her arrests. The sheriff’s office said it asked prosecutors to keep her in custody.
On Sunday, the sheriff’s office said, the suspect totaled her car again after hitting a parked car, which in turn struck another car, in a neighborhood in Tacoma. The warrants were then issued, and the woman was arrested yet again.
“The moral of this story: Inhalants are extremely addictive and dangerous. Please reach out for help if you or a loved one is suffering from an addiction,” the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said.
