Man killed in I-5 accident Wednesday

By Cameron Macdonald
Citizen Staff Writer

A 35-year-old man died Wednesday when his jeep crashed into a steel light-pole near the Laguna Boulevard overpass on Interstate-5 on Sept. 5. A passenger in the vehicle was hospitalized for moderate injuries, authorities reported.
The deceased man, who was reportedly from Sacramento, was not identified and Sacramento County coroners could not be reached for information about him, as of press time.
Jasper Begay, spokesperson for the California Highway Patrol, said that the incident occurred around 2:45 p.m. on Sept. 5.
The driver was traveling in a 1991 Jeep Cherokee northbound on Interstate-5’s fast lane when the accident happened, Begay said, adding that it appeared the driver drifted over into the freeway’s center divider and struck a steel guardrail.
The jeep then bounced away from the rail and spun sideways across all four northbound lanes and into the dirt of the roadway’s right shoulder.
“Somehow he avoided hitting the other vehicles,” Begay said.
He said that the driver was wearing a seatbelt at the time, but he died instantly when the vehicle’s driver door struck the light-pole.
The victim’s passenger was taken to the UC Davis Medical Center for medical treatment.
This incident occurred around the same time that a car carrying an elderly couple had crashed into an artificial lake a mile away in Elk Grove’s Laguna West area.