LIVERMORE — A 33-year-old Lodi man died after he was impaled by a metal rod that burst through his windshield on westbound Interstate 580 early Wednesday morning, police said.

A spokeswoman from the Alameda County Coroner’s officer identified him as Michael Cox.

Cox was alone in the car and no one else was injured, said a spokesman from the California Highway Patrol.

CHP officers responded to I-580 about a half-mile west of Grant Line Road shortly after 8 a.m. to investigate a Volvo station wagon crashed into a median, said CHP Officer John Bautista. Officers approached the car and found that a metal pipe had flown through the windshield, hitting the driver in his upper torso and head area.

Cox was pronounced dead at the scene. The metal object, not the subsequent car crash, appeared to be the cause of death, authorities said.

The metal object, which was later identified as a tool used to ratchet down truck loads, appears to have come from a truck or a trailer, Officer Tyler Hahn said.

“Whether it came bouncing off of a trailer or if it was kicked up off the ground from another car, we don’t know,” Hahn said.

It was not immediately known if police had been able to track down the driver of the truck or trailer.

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