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Woman Dead, Husband Burned After Day In SoCal Sun

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Jun 19, 2008 6:14 am US/Pacific

Woman Dead, Husband Burned After Day In SoCal Sun

PARKER, Calif. (AP) ― An elderly woman is dead and her husband severely burned after they wandered from their car in eastern San Bernardino County on a day when area temperatures reached 116 degrees.

Sheriff's Sgt. Tim Smith says the couple from Oracle, Ariz., was driving Monday near the California side of the Colorado River when 90-year-old Virgil Sanders stopped their car, got out and walked away. Authorities don't know why he did, but 77-year-old Joyce Sanders took off in search of her husband.

A passerby Monday evening found them 50 yards from their car at the bottom of a hillside.

Joyce Sanders was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities said Wednesday that her husband was hospitalized in extremely critical condition with second- and third-degree burns from the sun and lying on the ground.

An autopsy is scheduled for Joyce Sanders.

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