A 77-year-old Albany man died Monday morning after he drove his car off U.S. 20 and crashed into the Willamette River just east of Corvallis.

The Benton County Sheriff’s Office said Kenneth Leys “may have had a medical event” that caused him to drive across oncoming traffic on the westbound section of the highway between Albany and Corvallis and into the river below.

According to Undersheriff Greg Ridler, Leys’ car plunged off the highway, through a thicket of trees and brush and steep terrain across the road from Hewlett Packard’s Corvallis campus and into the Willamette below.

Ridler said it’s “rare” for a vehicle to go into the river, adding that it has happened just once in the last five or six years -- that is until this month.

Leys’ death is the second in the span of just two weeks where a driver traveled off the highway and into the Willamette near Corvallis. On Jan. 7, a Brownsville woman was reported missing and later found along with her vehicle in the river.

Ridler said the response is taxing for the law enforcement and medical personnel in Benton and Linn counties, which have responded twice to these incidents just this month. The first response is concern for the families, he said. The second is, “How can we do this again, already?”

The Brownsville woman, Sue Derheim, drove off the highway about 20 feet from a guardrail. She was driving in icy conditions. Ridler said a guardrail likely would not have made a difference in Leys’ death, as he was “traveling at a high rate of speed.”

The crash just after 7:30 a.m. Monday closed the highway for more than three hours.

Ley’s 2012 Chevy Cruze struck a tree before hitting the river. Dive teams helped pull the vehicle from the river. There is no sign that alcohol or drugs played any role in the crash.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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