Oh Ambien, the sleep med known to bring on weird and disturbing cases of somnambulism. People have claimed to sleepwalk on the drug, sleep-eat—waking up with crumbs all over their mouths and food lying all over their beds—and, in the case of Sister Kimberly Miller, sleep-drive. Unfortunately, the Philadelphia nun wound up driving to New Jersey in a blackout, swerving dangerously across the road, ultimately plowing her Chevrolet Impala into an auto shop on a South Jersey Highway last November.
But after getting slapped with DUI charges—along with reckless driving and fleeing the scene of an accident—and winding up on trial in front of a judge, her lawyers tried using the so-called “Ambien defense” to exonerate her.
Nuns Need Sleep Too!
Sister Miller, who worked as a librarian and theology teacher at Little Flower Catholic School in Philadelphia, suffered from chronic insomnia, in addition to a bad case of arthritis at just 41. According to the police report, the week of the crash she hadn’t slept in four straight days, which caused her extreme distress (it would throw me into a tailspin too). Though a doctor had prescribed Ambien in the past for insomnia, Miller wasn’t too hot on taking it because her brother is a drug addict and she didn’t want to end up with a bad habit.
But on November 15, she caved and took a pill. Unfortunately, she swallowed the Ambien with a glass of altar wine, and this prior to having wine at a book fair earlier in the evening. Obviously it’s not a good idea to take Ambien when you’ve got any booze in your system, even if it is Holy wine, especially given it can have wonky side effects on its own. I mean, it says this on the bottle.
After knocking out, she got in her car, drove, and plowed into the shop.
The officer at the scene of the accident, Paul Crozier, walked Sister Miller through a field sobriety test, which she failed twice and refused to take a third time. She wasn’t honest about the booze or the Ambien initially, but later she fessed up to drinking “two small glasses of wine” along with the Ambien.
Is an “Ambien Defense” Legit?
Once in the courtroom, Sister Miller and her attorneys spent a good six hours arguing her defense in front of a judge.
“She did not have any knowledge that taking Ambien would have this effect. She doesn’t remember,” said defense attorney Jeffrey Lindy.
Sister Miller claims to have suddenly snapped out of her Ambien blackout while in the police station. Prior to that, she says she has a four-hour gap in memory.
“At first I thought it was a dream, because I had handcuffs on,” she said. “I was in my habit. I’m a nun.”
But complicating Sister Miller’s case, according to her lawyers anyway, is her history of sleep-walking, which started in childhood. According to them, Miller was extra-prone to develop an Ambien-induced episode of sleep-driving given her prior somnambulism. And a nun at her convent testified that she had seen Miller sleepwalk on one occasion.
Of course, the alcohol probably didn’t didn’t help.
In the end, they just found Sister Miller guilty for driving under the influence, and her driver’s license was suspended for 90 days. She also racked up a $650 fine and has to complete DUI classes. But the reckless driving and fleeing from the accident charges were dismissed.
A Lesson to be Learned
There’s a solid moral to this story—pay attention to those silly labels on your prescriptions and when they say don’t take with alcohol and avoid driving or operating machinery follow those rules. Of course, if you have ever experienced episodes of sleep-walking, sleep-talking, sleep-eating, or, if you’re like me, acting out the nightmares of your boyfriend cheating on you by punching him in during a deep sleep, you might think twice about taking the Ambien.
As for Sister Miller, well, thank God no one was killed or injured.
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