Polk man calls 911 to report a drunk driver ... himself

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is commending a Winter Haven man for alerting authorities about a drunk driver on New Year’s Eve — but the caller ended up being the one arrested on DUI charges.

Michael Lester, 39, called 911 shortly before 9 p.m. to report that he was driving drunk “all over Winter Haven,” according to a call released by authorities Friday.

“I dunno. I’m drunk. I don’t know where I’m at,” he said when a dispatcher asked for his location.

Lester eventually told the dispatcher he was driving the wrong way near a Publix in Winter Haven. He had been driving around all night “trying to get pulled over,” he said.

“I think I’m going to go get something to eat and they can catch up with me,” he told the dispatcher shortly before hanging up.

Deputies found Lester on Sixth Street, near Avenue M. His red Ford F-150 was traveling south, with half of the vehicle in a left turn lane and the other half in the northbound lane, deputies said.

After pulling the truck over, “I ordered the driver to step out of the vehicle and he just sat there and stared at me as if he was confused,” a deputy wrote in an arrest report.

Lester was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence after failing a series of field-sobriety tests. He initially told deputies he drank two beers but later said it may have been three or four. Lester said he had only slept four hours during the past four days, and told deputies he had swallowed meth early that morning, according to an arrest report.

Lester