Authorities may never know if Ridgecrest earthquake led to death of Nevada man

Authorities aren’t sure if the July 4 Ridgecrest earthquake led to the death of a Pahrump, Nevada man found crushed beneath a vehicle that he apparently was working beneath when it fell off of its jacks.

An autopsy shows Troy Ray, 55, of Pahrump, died from “traumatic asphyxia” and had other injuries, Nye County sheriff’s Sgt. Adam Tippetts said.

The coroner has determined the death was an accident.

Tippetts said that the vehicle falling on top of Ray “may have been caused by recent earthquakes.” So far, no other death has been tied to the Ridgecrest earthquakes.

Pahrump, about a one-and-a-half hour drive from Las Vegas, is about 100 miles northeast of the epicenter of both the July 4 quake and the July 5,  7.1-magnitude quake. The Pahrump Valley Times reported both quakes shook the area.

Nye County sheriff’s Lt. David Boruchowitz said investigators were focusing on the July 4 quake. Ray, who lived alone, contacted his family daily but didn’t on July 4, he said. Ray was last seen alive at a local gas station on July 3.

“It’s one of those things where we may not be able to say, ‘100 percent,’ ” Boruchowitz said of determining if the quake caused Ray’s death. “At the end of the day, it’s probably going to be a best guess.”

Boruchowitz said the investigation was continuing, but there were no witnesses.

 

Investigators with the Nye County Sheriff’s Office said Ray may have been working on the vehicle when the 6.4-magnitude earthquake rocked the Mojave Desert communities of Ridgecrest and Trona, at 10:33 a.m. on July 4, and possibly knocked the truck off its jacks.

Investigators said the vehicle, a vintage-model Jeep, had been properly set up on the jacks, which were found in the locked position and in good order.

Sheriff’s deputies were called to the scene at 1 p.m. Tuesday by a passerby who saw the man’s legs sticking out from beneath the vehicle. Ray lived inside a pair of RVs in a remote area of Pahrump.