A tractor-trailer driver allegedly under the influence of a dangerous cocktail of illicit drugs was arrested during a traffic accident on Main Street.
Donald R. Vaughn Jr., 46, of North Carolina, was driving a tractor-trailer north near the intersection of Main and Center streets when he traveled into the turning lane, damaging a Subaru and causing minor injuries to one person.
It was about 8:30 a.m. when Moab City Police Department officer Aaron Woodard responded to the accident. Woodard said in his report on the accident that upon speaking with Vaughn, he was “scratching his head and arms and was very jittery.”
“Based on my experience, I knew this to be associated with someone under the influence of drugs,” Woodard said.
Woodard initiated field-sobriety tests on Vaughn and Vaughn allegedly failed all of them, the officer’s reports said. When Vaughn was asked to perform the “One Leg Stand” test, he allegedly began swaying and raising his arms and put his foot down, reports said.
A second officer was called to assist with the situation.
Although a breathalyzer tested negative for alcohol, officers gained permission from the co-driver to search the cab of the tractor-trailer “for anything illegal,” reports said, and initially found a bag that contained a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine.
As Vaughn was arrested for the suspected DUI, but upon being read his Miranda Rights, he declined to answer questions without his attorney present, reports said.
In a further search of the tractor-trailer, officers “found even more methamphetamine, black tar heroin, six caplets with a brown substance in it which appeared to be either heroin or MDMA, and used syringes.”
Reports said there were four small individually-packaged bags of methamphetamine weighing about 4 grams total, and also, separately, a half-gram of black tar heroin found inside the tractor-trailer. The co-driver denied any knowledge of the drugs, reports said, and allegedly told an officer that the drivers don’t have much interaction as one of them is sleeping while the other is driving.
A female passenger in the Subaru was transported to Moab Regional Hospital with minor injuries, reports said.
Vaughn was transported to the Grand County Jail and charged with two third degree felonies for possession of methamphetamine and heroin and a class B misdemeanor for DUI (drugs).
At the jail, Vaughn allegedly agreed to a urine sample, which tested positive for both methamphetamine and MDMA.
Passenger taken to hospital for minor injuries, police say
