Tragedy struck after a Nevada Department of Corrections employee was suspected of being impaired on the job, subsequently sent home, and later died in a vehicular accident. The employee, Miles Collins, aged 38, was involved in a single-vehicle crash on July 2, which proved to be fatal, as confirmed by 8 News Now Investigators. Documents indicate that at least one colleague observed signs of impairment, including slurred speech. The Clark County coroner found Collins to have had MDMA, methamphetamine, cocaine, and THC in his system at his time of death.
An investigation is now focusing on why Collins, an HVACR specialist at the Southern Desert Correctional Center, was permitted to drive himself after being suspected of impairment. According to a source inside the prison who spoke with FOX5 Vegas, Collins should never have been behind the wheel. The witness, wishing anonymity, revealed that the responsibility for the decision has become a point of contention within the department.
Collins was reportedly driven to a clinic in Las Vegas for testing early in the morning and was then driven back to the prison. It was around 10:30 a.m. that he left the facility in his own vehicle, only to crash approximately 45 minutes later along US-95, as stated in an obtained report by 8 News Now. The manual for State of Nevada Executive Branch Agencies mandates that it is the "appointing authority’s responsibility to make sure the employee is transported home" post testing, a policy seemingly not followed in this instance.
As the incident casts shadows on the procedural adherence within the Nevada Department of Corrections, officials from NDOC have refrained from commenting on the case, citing it as a personnel matter, when approached by FOX5 Vegas. Collins was hired in April 2017 and had been working at the medium-security prison located near Indian Springs, a roughly 45-minute drive north of Las Vegas. His death has now been ruled an accident by the coroner, due to blunt force trauma to the head and torso.
Questions linger regarding the adherence to protocols designed to prevent such tragedies. The NDOC has a policy, outlined in Administrative Regulation 349, stating the procedures when an employee is suspected of impairment. The policy, as it appears, wasn't appropriately enforced, leading to a fatal outcome. "The Shift Supervisor, Warden, Assistant Warden or Division Head shall determine the need for alcohol and/or drug testing of employees based on objective facts of an employee’s workplace performance behaviors," mandates the regulation. But as the unnamed prison insider mentioned to FOX5 Vegas, "Those decisions come from him and how he lied on his report that he put out when he got investigated," highlighting a deep-rooted issue within the system that may have cost Collins his life.
