Fatal medical emergency may have preceded crash near Turlock | Modesto Bee

The California Highway Patrol for now is treating it as a crash, but a medical emergency may have taken the life of a Turlock man west of the city.

About 8 a.m. Friday, residents in the area first noticed a red Toyota Prius alongside West Linwood Avenue just west of South Central Avenue, said CHP spokesman Officer Eric Parsons.

“They didn’t think much about it, but later realized that someone inside it hadn’t moved in a couple of hours.”

Inside the vehicle was a roughly 60-year-old man, Parsons said. CPR was performed but he could not be resuscitated and was pronounced dead about 10:15 a.m.

The vehicle was on the shoulder of the westbound lanes but facing east, Parsons said, “so it appears he was going east, drifted across the road and came to rest on the berm at low speed.”

A telephone pole in the area had recently been replaced, so the old pole was lying along the berm. The car rolled over the pole at low speed, Parsons said. There was no visible damage to the Prius, he said.

The man’s identity was being withheld Friday pending notification of family.