State takes license of epileptic driver

AUBURN -- An epileptic man will lose his license, at least temporarily, after a seizure last week sent him rolling in his car through early morning traffic with his infant son in the back seat.

Neither he nor his infant son, who was also in the car, was injured. The Maine Department of Transportation told him in a letter that his license will be suspended Aug. 24.

Kenneth Ouellette, 39, of Auburn, said he had gone off his medication for 10 hours at his doctor's order as part of a semiannual, standard test to detect Dilantin levels in his blood.

Dilantin is a common anti-epileptic drug that is taken once or twice a day, according to the Epilepsy Foundation Web site.

In addition to not taking his medication, Ouellette had fasted as part of his preparation for the blood test, which he took at around 7 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 9. When he got out of the doctor's office, he headed straight for McDonald's with his infant son for some breakfast. He planned to take his medication with his meal, he said.

But 10 hours without Dilantin sent him into the first epileptic seizure he'd experienced in 10 years as he exited the McDonald's parking lot. Ouellette is a little hazy about what happened next.

"According to my wife, she asked me what I was doing on Center Street at 7:30 in the morning, and I drew a blank, and I told her I didn't know," he said.

When the car rolled into traffic ahead of Jill Crowell, a registered nurse from Oakland, she realized what was happening, caught up to Ouellette's vehicle and brought it to a stop. She stayed with him until emergency medical technicians arrived and took him to St. Mary's Regional Medical Center.

Crowell went off to work after that, and didn't hear about Ouellette's condition until he contacted her husband on Tuesday.

"I'm very glad to hear that he's doing well," she said. "It surprised me how much response I got from a lot of people. It was just one of those experiences, where, you know, I really wasn't thinking, and something didn't look right. I'm glad I was there that day."

A letter from Gov. John E. Baldacci and plentiful praise from others for her courage and presence of mind has not convinced Crowell that she did anything heroic.

"I've worked with a lot of good nurses who I think would have probably done the same thing," she said. "It's something that I've been trained to do, and he was fortunately in a place where I felt comfortable just waiting for help to come."

Reader Comments
Share your thoughts about this story.