A 30-year-old man died Saturday night from injuries he sustained earlier in the evening when he crashed into a tree in Vista and then fled the scene, sheriff’s officials said.
The crash was reported about 6 p.m. on North Santa Fe Avenue near North Paseo Marguerita, according to San Diego sheriff’s Lt. Nick Backouris and Lt. Noah Zarnow. The crash occurred when the driver of a Honda Civic failed to negotiate a curve in the road, veered off the roadway and struck a tree.
When sheriff’s deputies arrived at the scene, the occupants of the vehicle were gone, Backouris said. A witness told deputies that another vehicle had arrived and retrieved a driver and enger.
A little more than an hour later, around 7:15 p.m., deputies were called to a residence on Apollo Drive about a mile south of the crash scene where deputies found an unconscious man, Zarnow said. Backouris said the man had sustained a punctured lung.
The man died from his injuries, Zarnow said. Sheriff’s deputies confirmed he was the driver in the earlier crash.
Backouris said no information about the reported enger or any injuries that person might have sustained was available Sunday morning. The name of the man who died was not released.
Traffic investigators from the sheriff’s Vista substation are probing the cause of the crash and don’t yet know if alcohol or drug impairment was a factor, Zarnow said.
Anyone who may have witnessed the crash or captured video of it was asked to the Sheriff’s Department at (858) 565-5200 or San Diego County Crime Stoppers’ anonymous tip line at (888) 580-8477.
