94-Year-old woman killed, husband injured in hillside crash near Mount Helix

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – A 92-year-old man was recovering at a hospital Tuesday from injuries he suffered when the car he was driving crashed about 100 yards down a roadside embankment near Mount Helix, killing his 94-year-old wife.

The crash occurred shortly before 4 p.m. Monday, when the couple’s 2003 Lexus ES300 veered off the southern edge of a private driveway on Alto Drive in Casa de Oro and struck an uphill embankment, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The sedan then veered to the west across the drive and went down another embankment, rolling side over side several times before coming to a rest upside down on top of a retaining wall in a residential backyard, CHP public-affairs Officer Travis Garrow said.

The passenger died at the scene of the accident. Emergency crews freed her husband from the crumpled car and took him to Sharp Memorial Hospital for treatment of moderately serious injuries, Garrow said.

Their names were withheld pending family notification.

Intoxication was not believed to have been a factor in the crash, Garrow said.