On Monday, May 29, sometime around 6:18 p.m., a man entered the Samco at the fourway stop where Highway 89 branches in downtown Kanab. The Arizona resident was seen as off balance, stumbling and mumbling to himself, before suddenly passing out. The attendant at the store rushed to his side and called 911.
Both police and medical responded to the situation, with the police taking statements and observing security camera footage of the deceased man and the medical team performing their examination and pronouncing the man dead on scene. The deceased individual was carrying identification, but that information has not yet been released as the investigation into his death is still in its early stages.
According to Kanab Police Chief Tom Cram, “There could have been any number of factors involved - he’d been driving up to that point, so we’re lucky he pulled off before whatever occurred. This shouldn’t be a liability issue for the store, the people there did the best they could. He could have had a preexisting health condition, people use a number of substances that affect their health, some illicit and some not … right now, we really don’t know what happened.”
The deceased man was sent to the Medical Examiner’s office in Salt Lake where an autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. As mentioned, the police have no indicators of suspicious activity at this time, and all evidence points to death of natural causes, or potentially something self-administered. Per Chief Cram, “at this point, it’s all just speculation. We’ll just have to wait for the autopsy to know more.”
