Update: One dead, one badly hurt in two-vehicle wreck north of Patterson on Interstate 5
A 54-year-old Gilroy man was killed and a Sacramento man suffered major injuries in a collision Saturday night on southbound Interstate 5 north of Howard Road, the California Highway Patrol reported
About 9:43 p.m., the CHP received a call that a vehicle had overturned on the southbound side of I-5.
Shortly after, there was a report of a second vehicle with front-end damage and one person “unresponsive.”
According to a CHP news release, the Gilroy man, who was driving a 1983 Jeep, was found on the west shoulder near the vehicle. He was ejected from his vehicle during the crash and died at the scene.
The preliminary investigation indicates the Jeep driver was southbound in the right lane.
The Sacramento driver, 30-year-old Martin Diaz Barajas Jr., also was in the right lane, approaching the Jeep from behind. He allowed the right front of his vehicle, a 2018 Ford, to hit the left rear of the Jeep, the CHP reported.
The collision caused the Jeep to go onto the west shoulder, where it overturned. Barajas lost control of his vehicle as it entered the center divide, where it overturned numerous times before hitting a high-tension cable barrier and coming to a stop.
Barajas was taken by air ambulance to Memorial Medical Center in Modesto.
Barajas was wearing his safety restraint, the CHP reported, and whether the same is true for the Jeep driver remains under investigation.
Speed appears to have contributed to the crash, the CHP says, but alcohol and drugs do not.
This story was originally published October 24, 2021 at 6:29 AM.
