Man pronounced dead after car leaves road

A medical condition most likely caused the accident, a sergeant with the Ohio State Highway Patrol said.

STAFF REPORT

WARREN — An 80-year-old Warren man was pronounced dead in his car on the south side of state Route 82 Monday morning, a mile west of the state Route 45 exit in Champion.

Loyd A. Sprague of Van Wye Street Southeast had been ill and told family members he was driving to the Cleveland Clinic on Monday before his car went wildly out of control and zigzagged between the eastbound and westbound lanes of traffic, authorities and a witness said.

Police were first notified about 8:55 a.m. that a car was traveling westbound on the highway in the eastbound lanes.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol said Sprague’s vehicle left the westbound lanes and traveled across the median and struck a guardrail, then traveled a mile more before crashing into a steel fence and into the woods.

A woman traveling east on the highway said she could see the vehicle zigzagging across the median toward her at high speed, saw other cars on the highway slowing down and staying out of the way, and then saw the car leave the road for the last time in front of her.

“He went into the median and came back over and was zigzagging,” she said.

The woman, who declined to give her name, said the man was slumped over the wheel as the car sped past her to the right and crashed into the fence and woods near the Leavitt Road overpass in Warren Township.

“Going along with witnesses, there’s a good indication that it was some sort of a medical condition” that caused the accident, said Sgt. Larry Firmi of the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Warren Post. The accident remains under investigation.

Sprague’s family said the man had been ill and was taking himself to the Cleveland Clinic at the time of the accident, Firmi said.

The vehicle was found about 100 feet beyond a metal fence on the south side of the road in a wooded area. Sprague was wearing his seat belt.