An East Dundee man killed in February after being struck by three cars on Route 31 had a blood alcohol content nearly four times over the legal intoxication level, records show.
Tom Yucuis, 69, longtime owner of Butcher On The Block meat shop in Lake in the HIlls, was walking in the roadway near Miller Road in Dundee Township about 6 a.m. Feb. 24 when he was hit, according to Kane County sheriff’s office reports.
“In speaking with the detective assigned to the investigation, the deceased’s toxicology report has come back at an ethanol level of 298,” Undersheriff Amy Johnson said in an email Monday.
When converted to a blood alcohol content, that translates to 0.298, Johnson said. The legal BAC limit to drive in Illinois is 0.08 or less.
Someone with a BAC level of 0.15 to 0.30 could experience confusion, vomiting and drowsiness, according to information on the Cleveland Clinic website. Anything that exceeds that amount could result in loss of consciousness and alcohol poisoning, which can be fatal, the site said.
Toxicology tests are done routinely during autopsies, but it can take several weeks for results to be completed and returned.
Johnson said no tickets or charges will be filed in the case, which is now considered closed.
On the day he died, Yucuis was wearing dark clothing and walking in the southbound lanes of Route 31, the sheriff’s office said. The drivers of three vehicles that struck him stopped to help and called 911, reports said.
No other details as to what happened or why Yucuis might have been in the roadway have been released by the sheriff’s office, which told The Courier-News that a Freedom of Information request would have to be submitted before they would consider providing more on the case.
Yucuis was born in Chicago but grew up in Sleepy Hollow and graduated from Dundee Community High School in Carpentersville in 1973, his online obituary said. He had been a butcher/meat cutter by profession for 50 years, and he and his wife, Jill, owned their Lake in the Hills butcher shop for 25 years.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
