Heart condition played role in fatal Foresthill crash?

Signs point to the death of a Foresthill man in a single-vehicle crash Friday being related to heart trouble and ill health, a relative said Monday.Edward Alvey, a 79-year-old retired millwright, died about a quarter-mile west of Driver's Flat Road on a winding section of Foresthill Road that's noted for several tight turns.Alvey's subcompact car was seen by a witness traveling at a high rate of speed as it rounded a sharp turn apparently out of control. After moving back and forth in both lanes of the two-lane roadway, it hit a curb and Alvey – who was not wearing a seatbelt – was pitched out of a side window.His niece, Mary Frazier of Atoka, Okla., said Alvey had a heart condition and was recovering from cancer. He was on medication but both diseases seemed to be under control.Frazier said the possibility of the Toyota Yaris he was driving having an accelerator malfunction is also being considered as family members deal with the death of a "very sweet man.""I just praise God that no one else was on the road and in the car's way," Frazier said.Alvey had cheated death in the mid-1990s when a winter deluge blew out the cliff on a road he was driving to work. Frazier said her uncle had sent a newspaper clipping to her family about the close call that sent his truck down the canyon and into the river while he was able to pull himself to safety."They never found his truck," Frazier said.Frazier said that this time around, Alvey was fortunate to have someone stop and hold his hand during the last seconds of his life before he died."I'd like to meet that person and thank him," Frazier said. Originally from Florida, Alvey lived in Fort Worth, Texas before moving to California. Alvey had served in the U.S. Army and was a member of the Foresthill American Legion. He was preceded in death three years ago by his wife, Bobbie."When he first got sick, we talked about him moving to Oklahoma but he decided not to, that he always loved it where he was," Frazier said.The accident occurred about half a mile west of a head-on crash March 17 that took the lives of two people. Signs at the Driver's Flat Road turnoff that Alvey passed Friday warn about the potential for skids and caution drivers to slow to 40 mph.Officer David Martinez, California Highway Patrol spokesman, said Monday that the investigation was continuing into the crash. Results of an autopsy by the Placer County Coroner's Office were not known late Monday.