City man dies after car crash, medical incident

WOONSOCKET – Gerard F. Bouvier had told family members he wasn’t feeling well before getting in his car Monday morning, heading for Landmark Medical Center. But he never made it. Police found the 72-yearold Cumberland man unresponsive in his green Subaru Outback shortly before 5 a.m. after investigating a report of a car crash near Elder Ballou Meeting House Road and Viva Way. Members of the Woonsocket Fire Department transported Bouvier to Landmark, where he was later pronounced dead, said Detective Capt. Michael A. Lemoine.

“We won’t know for sure until we receive a report from the medical examiner, but all indications are that his death was the result of some sort of a medical incident,” said Lemoine. “The crash itself wasn’t very serious.”

Lemoine said Bouvier, of 29 Jencks Road, left his house before dawn after telling family members he wasn’t feeling well.

Instead of calling a rescue squad, Bouvier apparently decided to drive himself to the hospital.

He drove about two miles from his house near the Massachusetts line before he apparently lost control of the vehicle. Lemoine said Bouvier was heading into the city on Elder Ballou when he began to veer into the oncoming lane of travel.

The vehicle apparently sideswiped a tree, a stone wall and a utility pole near Viva Way before coming to rest along the shoulder of Elder

Ballou, according to Lemoine. Bouvier may have been trying to stop before he crashed because all indications are that he wasn’t traveling very fast before he lost control of the vehicle.

Lemoine said EMS workers were unable to detect a pulse when they examined Bouvier at the scene.

Efforts to reach Bouvier’s family members were not successful, but Cumberland’s property records say he owned his Jencks Road home with his wife, Theresa. He was a longtime licensed amateur radio operator, broadcasting under the call letters K1AM, according to Federal Communications Commission records.

Police are awaiting the results of an autopsy before making an official statement regarding the cause of Bouvier’s death, said Lemoine.

Photo courtesy WJAR Pictured, the scene of a one-car crash where a city man may have died following a medical incident while driving on Elder Ballou Meeting House Road.