TONASKET, Wash. - U.S. authorities say a British Columbia man drove about 360 kilometres towards Canada after his 75-year-old wife died in the car next to him, uncertain whether he could cross the border with her.

Police Chief Robert Burks, in Tonasket, Wash., says the 71-year-old Oliver man didn't know what to do, so he kept driving.

The man and his wife were driving home from their vacation in Oregon on Sunday when she began suffering a medical condition and died near Pasco, Wash.

The Wenatchee World reports the man called the vehicle emergency system, OnStar, which put him in touch with dispatchers in Okanogan County.

A dispatcher convinced the man to stop at a police station, about 32 kilometres south of the border.

Burks says the woman was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, and police determined the death wasn't suspicious.