WASHINGTON COUNTY, Utah, May 15, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — A suspected drunk driver was charged with other offenses Monday after her passenger was ejected from her vehicle in a car crash.
Raven Lenay Norton, 27, was formally charged Monday in St George 5th District Court with negligently operating a vehicle resulting in serious bodily injury, a third-degree felony, and driving with a passenger in the wrong place, an infraction. Arraignment is set for May 18.
Norton, of St. George, was arrested at the scene of a two-car crash Sunday evening that resulted in her passenger being transported by a Life Flight medical chopper to St. George Regional Hospital, according to charging documents.
At the scene the arresting officer detected the odor of alcohol “emitting from her person,” according to a probable cause affidavit. “I also observed Raven’s pupils to be pinpoint even when there was cloud coverage.”
Norton informed the officer she was on pain medications for a back injury. “Raven also advised me that the rear passenger of the vehicle was sitting on the car door window with his body outside and feet inside of the vehicle prior to the incident occurring.”
Norton was booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility, Washington County’s jail, on suspicion of drunk driving Sunday night, but was not formally charged with that offense Monday pending the outcome of testing by a blood draw of her alcohol content.
She refused to take field sobriety tests on scene and repeatedly refused to submit to a breathalyzer test of her blood alcohol content, according to the court documents. A search warrant was obtained from a judge to conduct the blood draw blood alcohol test at the jail, with results pending.
