San Diego DUI criminal defense attorneys may see a DUI as one drives by on a mountain highway-the crumpled wreck of a car slammed into a tree or into another car-and catch a glimpse of a driver being administered a sobriety test while paramedics load a bloodied victim into an ambulance.

If this grisly scene, though infrequently viewed, can trouble our thoughts for weeks, imagine how it affects the law-enforcement officers called repeatedly to respond to carnage on the road.

Interviews this week with five CHP members of the California Highway Patrol show the many ways in which drunk drivers, and the accidents they so often cause, affect them, stirring emotions that range from anger to compassion and sometimes causing physical injury.

Officer Mark Naylor, who investigated the July death of Molly Wolfgang, the last drunk-driving auto accident fatality on the mountain, has an extensive history with drunk-driving crashes, and was the victim of one himself.

It was when he was stationed at the CHP's San Juan Capistrano office more than three years ago that he was in a crash that caused injuries his doctors tell him will never get better, he said.

A man whose blood-alcohol content was later measured at around .3 (nearly four times the legal threshold for intoxication) was in a domestic dispute with his wife when police in Santa Ana were called, he said. When they arrived they found the man in his car, in the driveway. He attempted to drive over his wife, Naylor said, and then backed up and tried to run over some of the officers.

With that, the chase was on. The motorist sped onto the southbound San Diego Freeway. The CHP took over the high-speed chase at the junction of the 5 and 55 freeways. Meanwhile, Naylor was stationed on the Ortega Highway on-ramp in San Juan Capistrano, waiting to join the pursuit when it reached him.

But then something unexpected happened, as the driver left the freeway via the Ortega off-ramp, only to try and re-enter on the on-ramp at an estimated 90 mph.

"He swerved and rear-ended my car," Naylor recalled. The impact knocked the black-and-white off the ramp and into the iceplant on the slope adjacent to it. The gun rack and heavy-gauge metal cage separating the driver from prisoners in the back seat slammed into Naylor's head.

"I was knocked unconscious," he said. "The last thing I remember thinking was, 'This bad guy is right next to me.' I woke up in the back of the ambulance. Two days after the accident I couldn't get out of bed on my own. It was full-body pain," he said.

Naylor said he's reminded of the accident every day. "When I turn my head I get Rice Krispies," he said, referring to the cereal's slogan of "snap, crackle and pop."

The officer made regular visits to a chiropractor after the crash, but goes less frequently now, though "If I don't go for a month things really bother me." Naylor said physicians have told him the accident has brought on the early stages of osteoporosis. "I will probably never get over it," he said.

As a result, his activities have been limited. "There's a lot of things I used to do that I can't do any more, things like surfing and playing racquetball. They're too painful."

Early in his career, Naylor said, he never anticipated such an injury. "I always thought, 'that won't happen to me. I'm really safe.' Some things just happen and you can't control them," he said.

One of the toughest things for an officer is having to inform the family of a drunk-driving victim. When that duty falls on him, he said, "It makes me more compassionate toward people for their loss. It makes me appreciate my family more."

Another Officer, Ben Baker, has won two awards from the San Bernardino County affiliate of Mothers Against Drunk Driving for his aggressive enforcement of drunk-driving laws and his arrest of more than 100 drunk drivers in five years. He described one fatal accident he investigated that involved a drunk driver.

"One guy had too much to drink. He had his girlfriend on his motorcycle. They went into the forest and when they came back onto the road, his bike left the road, hit a culvert and disappeared into the trees," Baker said.

Baker, who saw the man's body, said he died immediately. "The impact was just more than he could take," he said. A passing motorist picked up the woman, but she was so drunk herself she couldn't lead officers to the accident scene. The man was finally found by an ambulance crew, whose members coincidentally knew him.

Baker said he has arrested one driver four times for drunk driving. After the third conviction he was apparently released early, because the fourth incident occurred during the time he should still have been in jail. Fourth DUI arrests are felonies, he said, so the man is likely still behind bars.

"I look at DUI the first time as a mistake," he said. "I'm willing to forgive that. When people start doing it two or three times, there's no excuse for that."

Officer Alfredo Chen, who has been at the Running Springs office all of his seven and a half years with the CHP, said many of the drunk-driving accidents he's responded to involve juveniles as passengers, so the adult drivers may be charged with child endangerment.

Chen, who also received a MADD award last year for his more than 40 DUI arrests, comes from a military background, having been in the U.S. Marine Corps for six years as an investigator. His experience helps him govern his emotional reaction to drunk-driving accidents.

"My initial response is to make sure the case is done right," he said. "It may affect me a little bit later. If there are kids or the elderly involved, it always tugs on my heartstrings."

Chen said he'd rank drunk driving as a 10 on a 1-10 scale for the seriousness of crimes. "Drivers who drive under the influence display a total disregard for their own safety and the safety of others," he said. "I take pride in finding DUIs. If we stop one, we've probably saved somebody's life."

Officer Daven Wellman, a two-year CHP veteran, said drunk drivers are often solo occupants of their cars and frequently crash into objects, like mountainsides or trees. "The drivers often say they fell asleep," he said, but to a trained officer their actual condition is obvious.

Wellman cited one fatal DUI crash he investigated. "The driver had been drinking all day at work. He and his uncle were driving south on Highway 330," he said. "They hit a family van with seven kids. The mom had a complaint of pain, and the driver's uncle died." The drunk driver, whose car was a small Honda, suffered a broken arm and leg.

As for his personal reaction to such crashes, Wellman said, it's important for officers to erect barriers between their emotions and the situation. "At the scene you have a job to do," he said.

Finally, Officer Gary Fernandez, a 13-year CHP veteran, shared an interesting personal perspective on drunk driving. Two people he'd arrested for DUI later approached him, he said, and thanked him for taking them into custody.

"For him," Fernandez said of the man, "my arrest absolutely changed his life for the better. It was the turnaround point for him. He stopped drinking."

San Diego DUI criminal defense lawyers at http://www.sandiegodui.com/about.html hope folks will not get into a situation such as a DUI.