PORTLAND, OR — A 37-year-old woman was cited Monday afternoon after a jogger running past her parked Subaru Outback on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard called 911 to report that he had become “involuntarily intoxicated” after inhaling what he described as “a visible wall of smoke” pouring from the vehicle’s sunroof.
Crystal Dawn Arbogast was found inside the vehicle at approximately 3:20 p.m., windows up, sunroof cracked roughly one inch, surrounded by what officers described as “an interior haze so dense that the driver was not immediately visible from outside the vehicle.” Arbogast had been parked in the same spot for approximately two hours and was listening to what she later identified as “a 45-minute YouTube video of whale sounds.”
Secondhand Smoke, Firsthand Complaint
The jogger, Brendan Nye, 42, told officers he was mid-run when he passed the Subaru and “hit a cloud” emanating from the sunroof. Nye, who described himself as “very health-conscious and not a user of anything,” said he immediately felt lightheaded, sat down on a nearby bench, and then “ate an entire sleeve of Girl Scout cookies that were in my running vest for no reason I can medically explain.”
“I don’t want to press charges, I just want to know why I’m suddenly okay with sitting on this bench for an hour. I have a half-marathon on Saturday. I should be running. Why am I not running? What’s happening?” — Brendan Nye, jogger and accidental participant
Officers opened the driver’s side door and reportedly waited approximately 30 seconds for the interior to ventilate enough to identify Arbogast, who greeted them by saying, “Oh, are the whales done?” She was found to be in possession of a small amount of cannabis, which is legal in Oregon for personal use. However, she was cited for smoking in a vehicle on a public roadway and creating a public nuisance.
Arbogast was not arrested but her citation has been posted on JailReport.lol by popular demand after Nye’s account went viral on Reddit. Nye has since confirmed that he finished the cookies, did not complete his run, and went home to “watch three hours of a show about cake decorating.” He has described the experience as “upsetting but also kind of nice.”