WSMV Channel 4 Pregnant woman burned while in house with meth lab

A 19-year-old pregnant Lebanon woman was burned Thursday morning while she was inside a house in Rutherford County while someone was cooking meth.

She left the home and went to a store and called for an ambulance, which eventually led cops to the meth lab.

Sarah Jean Loftis, 19 drove to the Crescent Market on Barfield-Crescent Road just after eight this morning. A store clerk said she went into the bathroom, and then left the store and paced the parking lot before calling an ambulance on her cell phone.

"Something happened where she got a little burn on her arm," said Rutherford County Detective Lieutenant Egon Grissom.

Crime tape was put around her car while Rutherford County Sheriff's Narcotic detectives collected evidence. Channel 4 News was told they found drugs and methamphetamine in a gun packet in the store's bathroom where Loftis had just left. Channel 4 News also learned that Sarah Loftis was six months pregnant.

When Sheriff's deputies asked the 19-year-old how she got the burns, she told them, "at a house where they were cooking dope."

Rutherford County officials then went to the home at 3423 Blackman Road where they found five people inside, including a paraplegic man. He was taken to the hospital for observation. The other people in the house were evacuated and detained until the house could be checked to see if there was indeed a meth lab operating inside.

"Her along with the residents that were in there were cooking what she called a one pot method," Grissom said.

The Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force arrived and suited up, and the makings of a small meth lab were found in an unlikely place.

"In the attic," Grissom said.

Sheriff's officials said operating a meth lab inside a closed place is dangerous. In this case, extremely since the home is part of a duplex.

"Methamphetamine when cooking is dangerous period, because of stuff like this it can explode," Grissom added.

Loftis; Scott Mooneyham, 30; Robert Holland, 32; and Jessica Ferguson, 26, were each charged with initiation of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Rutherford County Sheriff's officials said this is the first meth lab in the county so far this year.

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