NEAR THE DALLES, Ore. - Oregon State Police trooper Lt. Pat Ashmore has seen a lot of drunk drivers, but he said he has never seen anything like a recent incident in his two decades in law enforcement.
   
He said the driver of a crashed car got so high so fast - while driving - on something other than alcohol or drugs that she passed out and caused a wreck on a narrow bridge the crosses the Columbia River.

Then, Marissa Prosser, 19, reportedly sobered up right before his eyes and passed all his DUII tests.

The intoxicant? A common canister of compressed air used to clean computer keyboards and monitor screens.

Prosser pleaded guilty to driving under the influence, the second time in one day the teen plead guilty to a DUII charge.

She told the judge that both times she was high on prescription painkillers, but that didn't explain what happened to her on The Dalles Bridge.

“I got up to the car and the female driver had passed out, had lost body functions," Lt. Pat Ashmore recalled.

Lt. Ashmore was the first officer to get to the crash and couldn't believe what he witnessed next.

“I’ve seen people under the influence of angel dust, it was that bad, really out of it,” Ashmore said of finding Prosser in her crashed car. She “started getting combative with me right away and I had to tell her who I was and hold her down for a second, and then she came to.”

He said he had to hold her up when she got out of her car.

But Prosser sobered up right before the trooper's eyes, passed the field sobriety and even urinalysis tests.

Lt. Ashmore spotted two cans of the computer keyboard cleaner, Dust-Off, in her back seat. Prosser admitted taking “hits” while driving. 

Commonly called “huffing,” Ashmore said Prosser told him that "a lot of her friends are doing it now, and it's a real cheap high."

Dr. Robert Hendrickson, a toxicologist with the Oregon Poison Center at OHSU, said "the brain is altered permanently if you're doing hydrocarbons,” the ingredient in compressed air cans that leads to the short-lived high.

He said the same hydrocarbon chemicals that are in Dust-Off are found in other household products such as air fresheners, hair spray, nail polish remover, and marking pens.

The propellants in some brands of canned whipped cream are also popular huffing targets.

Hendrickson claims 1 in 20 junior high kids admit to having tried huffing chemicals of some sort to get high.

In 2007, Nickolas Brown of Salem was found dead in his bed. A can of Dust-Off was close by.
    
He was just 14.

Teenagers told KATU what the high feels like. They said sounds echo and it can feel as though you are moving in slow motion, even though you are not.

Dust-Off and other brands of compressed air have warnings on the label to use the product responsibly, warning that huffing "may be harmful or fatal.”

One manufacturer has even added a bitterant so it tastes bad to help discourage inhalant abuse.

Hydrocarbons inhaled during huffing can alter the blood's ability to carry oxygen and can damage the kidneys and nerves.

They can also cause a dangerous reaction between a person's heart and adrenaline.

“There are many, many cases of people who are huffing and using hydrocarbons and get scared, or stand up and start to walk,” Dr. Hendrickson said,  “and their heart is sensitive to the adrenaline surge and starts to beat very, very fast and they just drop and die."

Or, as in the case of Marissa Prosser, the chemical's effects disappear within minutes, making it hard for parents or police to detect the use of the chemical.

The chemicals are also found in things like White-Out correction fluid and the glue kids use to put together models.