A man has been charged after a Utah truck driver was severely beaten and required surgery following a road rage incident.
The incident occurred on September 7 near Ogden, Utah, according to an October 16 filing in the Utah’s 2nd District Court.
The truck driver was driving on northbound I-15 when he encountered a vehicle driving slowly. The truck driver said that it appeared that the slow-moving driver was on his phone, so the truck driver blew his horn.
The driver of the vehicle allegedly then began brake checking the truck driver.
The driver then stopped his vehicle and tried to get the truck driver to pull over. The truck driver kept going and drove to his company’s terminal.
When he arrived, David Archie Hicks and another man pulled in shortly after.
The truck driver pulled his truck in front of the company’s security cameras and switched on his dash camera before exiting his truck.
Hicks, allegedly armed with a knife, then approached the truck driver. Hicks put the knife away after the truck driver grabbed a metal bar.
The two men began arguing and the truck driver used his cell phone to dial 911.
The truck driver said that Hicks then grabbed for the metal bar, causing the truck driver to drop his phone. The two men then began struggling to gain control of the metal bar.
Hicks then began punching the truck driver in the face.
Dash camera footage from the truck shows that Hicks struck the truck driver in the face up to 15 times. The victim did not fight back. He tried to maintain a hold on the metal bar.
“The trucker pinned Hicks against the truck trailer during the struggle, and Hicks’s companion moved in and punched the trucker in the face, deputies said,” the Standard-Examiner reported.
Hicks’s companion then threw the truck driver’s phone into a field and the two left.
The truck driver’s coworker witnessed the event and called 911.
The truck driver sustained facial fractures and required surgery, as well as cuts and a severe blood bruise to his right leg.
Hicks has been charged with second-degree felony aggravated assault with serious bodily injury and third-degree felony possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person and class B misdemeanor damaging a communications device.
Hicks remains in jail without bail.