JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In October 2021, Duval County school bus driver Lisa Mims was involved in a crash that she said derailed her life.
No students were on the bus at the time and neither she nor the bus monitor were seriously injured, but she was charged with DUI even though she blew a 0.000 on two breathalyzer tests. The charges were dropped by the State Attorney's Office in 2022, but the stigma remains.
As the three-year anniversary of the crash approaches, she is speaking out for the first time about what happened that morning.
Body camera video from an officer reveals the scene on I-295 at the I-10 ramps, in the early morning hours of Oct. 28, 2021.
"How did the hell did they get up in there?" the officer can be heard saying, shocked by how deep into the brush and trees the school bus had gone.
"I was like 'woah' and I just gripped the steering wheel," describes Lisa Mims.
Mims tells us that morning she was taking a different route than her usual routine and as she went into the turn, something felt off.
"The brakes didn't feel right, like they didn't catch," she says, "It went completely off and didn't even make it into the turn."
There were no students on the bus, the bus monitor onboard was shaken, but he had no serious injuries. Mims was not seriously injured either, but says she had cuts on her arms and struck her head on the steering wheel in the crash and noticed one more thing she felt was strange.
"I knew I was wet," she says, "My shirt, my face and I was rubbing my eyes."
In the body camera video captured by two officers, provided to First Coast News by Mim's attorney, you can see her in a white shirt after she was helped from the bus by Jacksonville Fire and Rescue firefighters. With the crash being on an interstate, it was under Florida Highway Patrol's jurisdiction.
The responding trooper was Gregory Johnson, after looking at the bus up in the brush he went to talk to Mims.
"This is the driver right here," says the JSO officer.
"Ma'am, how you doing? What happened?" asks Trooper Johnson.
Mims describes as she came into the turn she attempted to hit the brakes. Trooper Johnson and the JSO officer then walk away from her and the conversation is captured on the body camera video.
"You don't smell anything on her?" asks Trooper Johnson.
"I don't know, I think she has got body perfume and stuff on to, I couldn't tell," responds the JSO officer.
They go to get the opinion of a second JSO officer on scene.
"Did you smell anything on her?" asks the JSO officer to his colleague.
"No, I didn't talk, I mean I barely got her back you saw that and I left her in there. I haven't talked to her," responds the second officer.
"Cause I'm like, hopefully you aren't driving a bus in that condition," says Trooper Johnson.
He then goes back to Mims and read her her rights before asking if she had consumed anything before driving.
"Have you had anything to drink at all?" he asks Mims.
"I don't drink, I don't drink, I don't smoke, my husband is a pastor," she responds.
Mims informs Trooper Johnson she did hit her head on the steering wheel before he begins an eye test.
"I'm a put my finger here, watch my finger," he tells Mims moving a pen in front of her eyes. After a few passes back and forth, Trooper Johnson and the JSO officer walk away to discuss the results.
"I saw slight," said Trooper Johnson.
"I did too," responds the JSO officer.
"Did you?" Trooper Johnson responded.
"I did," said the officer.
"Because you saw what I saw right, I was making sure," said the trooper.
Dexter Van Davis is Lisa Mims' attorney and says he was surprised by what he saw in the body camera video.
"It is his opinion, his subjective opinion. He points something at her eyes and says her eyes jump then that's alcohol, but it jumps for other reasons," Davis said, "Head injuries causes your eyes to jump."
Mims was also given two more field sobriety tests, the "One-Leg Stand" and "Walk and Turn" tests, which the trooper felt she performed poorly. Mims said she has Multiple Sclerosis which impacts her walking and balance.
She was arrested on charges of Careless Driving and DUI, but reports show when she was given a breathalyzer in jail it came back as 0.000 twice. Also a screening for any controlled substances was negative.
Reports state her bus monitor with her that morning stated he did not observe any signs of impairment. The only thing found in her system was Ambien, which can remain detectable in a person's blood for up to 48 hours and Mims said she had taken a small amount two days before the arrest and she did have a prescription for it.
As soon as she was charged, the headlines came and Mims says within a day, her life crumbled.
"Oh it was awful, awful. It is still awful," said Mims, "It just flattened me."
She lost her job driving the school bus and delivering cars and struggled to find work.
"It follows you and with her it will always be on her record. The internet never goes away, you Google her name and it comes up and it is devastating for her," said Davis, "Especially someone who drove for a living."
The charges were dropped by the State Attorney's Office in March of 2022 due to "a lack of sufficient evidence", but Mims says the stigma of it has remained. Which is why Davis said they will be filing a lawsuit against Florida Highway Patrol. We took questions about DUI policies and the crash to the Florida Highway Patrol in Jacksonville.
"There's a lot of different layers the officer has combine and process and now make the decision to arrest," said Master Sgt. Dylan Bryan. He is the public information officer with the Florida Highway Patrol in Jacksonville.
Master Sgt. Bryan said the specific DUI units have an intoxilyzer (or breathalyzer) in the vehicle, but the rest of the units do not. So then troopers base their decisions on how a person performs during the field sobriety tests.
"Officers are trained to follow his training and experience and what I mean by that is obviously 'opinion' is kind of a loose word... the officer has the discretion to make that decision," he explains.
He said he cannot comment specifically on Mims' crash due to potential pending litigation, but says when the State Attorney's Office decides to drops charges in a case, that is something they will go back and look at.
"We want to know why, is there a reason why? Is there something we can improve in our process, our particular investigations that we are not providing to them. Is there something we can do better?" he said.
As for the alcohol smell and why she was wet after the crash, the more Mims reflected on that morning she thinks it was from a large bottle of hand sanitizer that was near the front of the bus.
"So we had a gigantic bottle, it was huge, so on impact it broke and it went all over me," describes Mims.
She said as it approaches three years since the crash, she wants her name cleared in the public eye and hopefully be able to move forward with her life.
"You have ruined my life Mr. State Trooper with your overzealous thinking and wanting to have something to say. This was cut and dry. No, no and no," she said.
"I can safely say and feel confident sitting here before you saying that these guys don't take this lightly. Taking someone into custody and taking their liberties away from them is a big deal and we understand that," said Bryan, "So it is not something we take lightly."