A Kentucky man died of heart problems as he drove into a cornfield Friday morning in a north suburban Freemont Township.
Deputies responded about 9:15 a.m. to a call of a traffic crash near Route 60 and Blackhawk Trail and found a Dodge Journey about 100 feet north of the roadway, the Lake County sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The Dodge came to a rest in a cornfield, the sheriff’s office said. A preliminary investigation showed the 74-year-old driver from Adairville, Kentucky was driving west on Route 60 when his vehicle turned left off the roadway.
The driver, who was the vehicle’s only occupant, was pronounced dead at the scene, the sheriff’s office said. He was not wearing a seatbelt.
The preliminary autopsy indicates he died from complications of hemorrhage due to an aortal pulmonary fistula rupture, Lake County Coroner Howard Cooper said in a statement. Toxicology results are pending, he said.
Cooper said Tuesday afternoon that the man died as a result of internal bleeding, and not the crash. He said the man did not crash into a tree, as originally reported by the sheriff’s office.
