Police: Driver’s leg cramp causes fatal Des Plaines crash

(DES PLAINES) A vehicle’s front-seat passenger died in a northwest suburban crash Monday afternoon after the woman driving the vehicle suffered a leg cramp and lost control.

The driver, a 71-year-old woman, was driving northbound at 3:50 p.m. near the 600 block of South River Road in Des Plaines when her leg cramped up, Des Plaines police said in a statement. She swerved her vehicle off the road, which struck the building at 659 S. River Road. A map shows that address as an apartment building.

Responding officers pulled a 73-year-old passenger from the vehicle, and a “good Samaritan” helped administer CPR, police said. She was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where she was pronounced dead about 25 minutes later, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

Police said she apparently suffered a heart attack. The medical examiner’s office did not release her name Monday night pending notification of her family. An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday.

Paramedics also took the driver and a back-seat passenger to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.