ST. GEORGE — Following a scooter-versus-automobile crash that seriously injured two juveniles Friday night, a St. George woman has been arrested for suspected DUI and other charges.

The driver, Christina Juliana Johnson, 18, was arrested early Saturday morning and booked into jail shortly before 3 a.m. on three third-degree felony charges, including one count each of negligently operating a vehicle resulting in serious bodily injury and two counts of failure to remain at the scene of an accident involving injury. She also faces one misdemeanor count of DUI.

The crash was reported shortly before 10 p.m. on Friday and involved a white Ford Fiesta and a scooter with two juvenile riders, both 14 years old, as previously reported by St. George News. The scooter struck the vehicle’s passenger side door and the driver of the car then fled the scene, St. George Police Public Information Officer Tiffany Mitchell told St. George News on Saturday.

Officers located the driver of the Ford, identified as Johnson, a few houses away, while an accident reconstruction team was dispatched to the scene. The two juveniles who were riding the scooter were flown to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City in serious condition.

Mitchell said the incident is still under investigation, and although the driver was arrested, there were many other contributing factors, including statements provided by a number of witnesses who told officers at the scene, “The children were driving too fast down the street on a machine with no headlights,” Mitchell said.

While the driver was cited in the incident, Mitchell added, “that wasn’t the defining factor of this crash.”

A drug recognition expert, who was called to the scene to determine if impairment played a role in the crash, spoke to Johnson who was shaken but appeared calm. When asked, Johnson reportedly said that immediately after the crash, she ran from the scene screaming and stopped approximately five houses down from where the collision had taken place.

She denied fleeing from the scene and said she was running home to get help. When she got there, she said no one was home. She also mentioned she had her cellphone in her pocket the entire time, according to the affidavit filed in support of the arrest. 

The officer then administered a field sobriety test near the scene and noted that during the test, Johnson failed the eye convergence test and her eyelids appeared to have tremors, both indications of possible impairment from substance use. When asked, Johnson reportedly denied any drug use and then she asked if marijuana could be in her system if she was “hanging out with people who smoked marijuana,” the officer noted in the report.

Johnson was later arrested and booked into the Washington County Purgatory Correctional Facility on the charges listed above. A blood and urine sample was also collected and sent to the crime lab for analysis.

On Monday, the case was reviewed by the Washington County Attorney’s Office who added another felony charge of negligently operating a vehicle resulting in serious bodily injury, bringing the total number of felony charges filed to four. A public safety assessment filed in the case indicates that Johnson had no criminal background prior to this case.

This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact. 

St. George News senior reporter Mori Kessler contributed to this report.

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