Coroner’s office identifies victim in rural Merced County crash

The Merced County Coroner’s Office identified a driver killed Sunday in a crash south of Gustine as Gilberto Salvador Gomez Mendiola., 20.

Coroner’s spokesman Deputy Daryl Allen said Mendiola is from San Juan Capistrano but recently had been living and working in Gustine.

California Highway Patrol officers responded to the July 19 solo-vehicle collision at about 4:21 a.m. in the area of Ingomar Road north of Husman Road.

The CHP said the white Nissan was traveling southbound on Ingomar Road when for unknown reasons it veered off the roadway and traveled down an embankment where it turned over onto its side resulting in the left side of the vehicle being submerged underwater.