State police troopers responded to a fatal accident last week in Branch County’s Girard Township.
Troopers were notified at 3:35 p.m. on Friday that a vehicle left the roadway and struck a tree at Gorbell and Bidwell roads.
The vehicle was traveling north on Gorbell Road when it failed to navigate a 90-degree right turn. It instead went straight through the curve, into a ditch and then head-on into a tree.
The driver, Richard Jewel, age 80, of Coldwater, was trapped in the vehicle and had to be extricated by the Coldwater Fire Department. He was airlifted from the scene to Bronson Hospital in Kalamazoo, where he subsequently died.