PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Meth and alcohol were both found in a driver’s system after he collided with another car, ran through a fence and smashed into a tree in Clackamas County.
The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office responded to the crash involving two trucks at Southeast Johnson Road and Southeast Clackamas Road around 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Once they arrived to the scene, deputies found debris scattered across the road and saw that the brown truck involved had lost its rear axle. Further down the street was the black Ford truck that authorities say caused the collision.
The incident was caught on footage thanks to a neighbor’s home security camera. It shows the victim’s brown truck headed east on SE Clackamas Road, slowing for the stop sign at the intersection. The black Ford is then seen traveling at a high rate of speed behind the victim’s truck. The video shows the Ford was traveling in the oncoming lane and may have been trying to pass the other truck, but instead hit it and sent both trucks flying across the intersection.
The victim driver suffered a non-life threatening injury to his arm and his truck was totaled.
The Ford truck had traveled through a fence and into a tree after colliding into the brown truck. First responders found the driver of the Ford still inside the truck, but the driver refused to cooperate or get out of the truck for an extended time. After deputies, firefighters and paramedics reasoned with him, they eventually got him out and onto a gurney. Once he was on the gurney, the driver began to yell. He was sent to a nearby hospital with visible lacerations.
The driver was identified as 56-year-old Richard Miller of Clackamas. While being treated for his injuries, a deputy conducted a DUII investigation. Both alochol and meth were found in Miller’s system and he was cited for a DUII.
Deputies realized that they had been dealing with Miller just hours before the crash. At 2:20 a.m., deputies responded to an incomplete 9.1.1. call that sounded like a physical altercation. They responded to a Clackamas County residence, where they spent over an hour outside of. Officials say they could see Miller inside yelling but he refused to answer the door.
Miller’s wife later told deputies she has left the house to stay at a hotel earlier that day due to Miller’s behavior.