Driver dies while trapped in unnoticed wreck off California road

A driver died while trapped upside-down in his car, which had gone down a brushy hillside, the San Diego County medical examiner said.

The wreck was discovered by chance on Sunday afternoon, as firefighters who had responded to an unrelated accident spotted it from the roadway. They climbed down to the overturned car and found its sole occupant dead.

The man, Ernesto Villar, 76, died of “positional asphyxia while suspended in vehicle,” the medical examiner’s report said. It did not say how long the wreckage had gone undiscovered.

The accident site was off the winding two-lane Pala Temecula Road about 3½ miles north of the community of Pala. Villar is believed to have resided in San Diego’s Mission Hills neighborhood.