An 82-year-old Cranbrook woman with medical problems maintains she was made to stand in the midnight chill for more than two hours while RCMP officers attempted 15 times to obtain a breath sample.

When the stone-cold-sober pensioner with poor lung capacity was unable to blow hard enough to activate the roadside screening device, Margaret MacDonald was cited for failing to blow, her licence was suspended, she was fined $500 and her car was towed.

Old but no fool, she quickly went to the local hospital where she had her blood tested for alcohol and obtained a medical certificate that said there was none — zero, nada — in her system.

“I know if you don’t have proof, no one will believe you,” MacDonald explained. “That’s what possessed me to go to the hospital. The Mounties weren’t going to get away with saying I was drunk or had been drinking.”

When she complained to the detachment, a corporal tried to help her out and gave her a letter supporting her appeal.

It didn’t matter a whit — the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles adjudicator still found her guilty under the province’s controversial drunk-driving laws.

“I may only have six months, maybe a year; when you’re in your 80s you don’t know how long you have left,” the spunky senior told me Tuesday.

“Why should I have to spend my days fighting this? I’m on a fixed income and it’s already cost me $6,000. I consider this whole matter to constitute a substantial wrong and a miscarriage of justice that could have been avoided if the officers involved had not jumped to the conclusion that I was impaired, had not completely ignored me, had discussed anything with me and had given me a chance to explain anything. Not one of them even asked if I had had a drink.”

The RCMP haven’t resolved her complaint — she’d like to be reimbursed by the force for her out-of-pocket expenses — and she is seeking a judicial review of the adjudicator’s decision.

On May 21, MacDonald visited a friend in Jaffray, about 50 km southeast of the city.

During dinner to celebrate an engagement, she says she had a sip of champagne in a token toast about 6 o’clock.

A Mountie doing a routine traffic check on Highway 3 stopped her on her way home around 11:45 p.m. He stuck his head in the driver’s side window, chatted with her and told her to beware of elk.

About 45 minutes later, in Cranbrook, a few blocks from her house, MacDonald mistakenly turned into the wrong lane and drove around a median. She felt dumb, but got home and parked her car.

She was at her front door when a car pulled up and the driver beckoned to her. She thought the woman was lost.

After pointing out her bad driving, the woman told MacDonald she was an off-duty cop and a patrol car was on the way to give her a breathalyzer test. She left when the cruiser arrived.