A 7-year-old boy was found at the side of a Sierra Nevada highway 12 hours after the crash that killed his mother, the California Highway Patrol said.
The pair was reported missing Sunday morning after they failed to return home the previous night from visiting a friend in the Sierra foothills east of Fresno.
Shortly before noon, the CHP was told that a child had been found walking alone on Tollhouse Road, the stretch of Highway 168 between Fresno and Shaver Lake.
Nearby, officers found the wreckage of a Subaru Crosstrek about 200 feet below the road. The child’s mother was dead outside the car, the CHP said. She was later identified as Bailie French, 30.
The boy was taken to a Madera hospital for treatment of injuries including a broken arm and was reunited there with his father, the CHP said.
Highway 168 in the Tollhouse area has seen several fatal crashes in recent years, including:
• August 2022, Venu Gopal, 69, chief forensic pathologist for the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, was killed when his car went off the road near Auberry.
• April 2020, Alex Ounmano, 17, a Clovis High School student, was killed when he crashed during what the CHP said was a daytime race on the highway. His passenger survived with a critical head injury.
• May 2017, Austin Wagenleitner, 20, and Aaron Beasley, 19, both of Clovis, were killed when their truck went 600 feet off the road. Jason Kirby, who survived, told investigators he thought he had been stranded with the wreckage for eight days, but it was later determined he was found about 12 hours after the crash.