Woman found dead in car at SLO County gas station
A woman was found dead in her car after a fatal medical episode in Atascadero on Monday morning.
At 7 a.m., the Atascadero Police Department received a call to check on the driver of a car stalled in the parking lot of the Chevron on San Anselmo Road, Officer Jeff Wilshusen told The Tribune.
Officers arrived on the scene within minutes and found an approximately 50-year-old woman unresponsive in the driver seat of the vehicle, Wilshusen said.
The vehicle showed signs of a damage from a minor, low-impact traffic collision, and officers deduced that the vehicle had rolled forward and crashed into a metal storage container that holds propane tanks at the gas station, he said.
Officers attempted CPR on the woman, but efforts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful.
She was announced dead on the scene, Wilshusen said. Her identification is pending notification of next of kin.
Wilshusen said the cause of death was a medical episode while the woman was operating the vehicle, likely causing her to release her foot from the brake, which in turn caused the car to roll forward into the metal storage container.
However, there were no witnesses or video surveillance footage of the incident.
“The collision did not cause the medical emergency,” Wilshusen said.
Drugs or alcohol were not suspected to have played a factor in the woman’s death at this time, but the final report was pending on the autospy and toxicology results, Wilshusen said.
