WOMAN THANKS FLORIDA DEPUTY WHO SENT HER TO JAIL

Brianna Byrnes hugged Martin County Sheriff's Deputy Justin Albauer after she thanked him for helping her get clean from drug addiction

By Julius Whigham II

The Palm Beach Post
August 11, 2016

STUART, Florida -- Brianna Byrnes described it as one of the lowest moments of her life. She says it was also a moment that changed her life.

Last August, Byrnes was pulled over during a traffic stop in Stuart and found with heroin and drug paraphernalia in her Jeep. On Wednesday, she returned to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, this time to thank the deputy who sent her to jail.

“You truly saved my life,” Byrnes, a recovering heroin addict, told K-9 Deputy Justin Albauer after the two shared an embrace Wednesday at the sheriff’s office.

It was the first time the two had seen each other since the night of Aug. 28, 2015, when Albauer arrested Byrnes on drug possession and drug paraphernalia charges following a traffic stop near the intersection of Kanner Highway and Indian Street.

Byrnes, 32, of Jensen Beach said the experience inspired her to get help and get clean.

“I had hit my rock bottom,” she said Wednesday. “I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I needed to get the help that I needed and it was given to me.”

Albauer pulled Byrnes over after noticing her Jeep swerving all over the roadway. During the stop, the deputy noticed that Byrnes seemed unusually nervous and suspected she may have been hiding something. After trying to talk her way out of the stop, Byrnes admitted that she had just purchased heroin from a dealer in Riviera Beach and had it with her in the car.

“I was on my way home from Riviera. (I had) literally just got off I-95 and I was maybe 2 miles from home and here this (deputy) comes up behind me,” Byrnes recalled.

Byrnes explained that night that she was trying to get help for drug addiction. Albauer listened, then encouraged her to get the help she needed.

“Obviously, she was nervous,” Albauer recalled. “She knew what she had in the car. (I was) just talking to her and she just came clean. She was honest about everything.”

Following her arrest, she was able to find a treatment facility.

Byrnes, who is originally from Delray Beach, said she started smoking marijuana in high school and has been addicted to drugs for about 18 years.

During her treatment, she spent 46 days in rehab. She said she’s been drug-free for nearly a year.

She described her meeting with Albauer as fate and said she might not have survived without it.

“I probably would have died,” she said. “This addiction would have killed me.”

Byrnes said she is now working two jobs while raising her young son.

During their reunion, Albauer handed Byrnes a medal for her efforts to get clean and she handed him a letter thanking him for helping her improve her life.

“You were so respectful that night,” she told Albauer. “You didn’t judge me for what I was going through, and you listened to me. You actually believed in me, that I could do it. And I’m forever grateful to you.”

Albauer said that Byrnes deserved the credit.

“(I’m) very proud,” he said. “All the hard work was on her end, though.”