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Lacey man dies when car plunges down hillside

A 47-year-old Lacey man died Friday when his vehicle slid off a Forest Service road west of Highway 101 and rolled more than 500 feet down a steep hillside in the Olympic Mountains.
Search and rescue crews found Patrick O'Connell several feet away from his vehicle, said Mason County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Dean Byrd. O'Connell was dead at the scene.
O'Connell and his fiancée, also of Lacey, Thurston County, had traveled to the spot on Forest Service Road 2469, which runs through steep terrain and a clear-cut, offering a panoramic view of Hood Canal. The couple parked their vehicle close to the edge.
The fiancée left the vehicle and O'Connell tried to repark it farther from the edge.
"Part of the road slid out and the vehicle went over," Byrd said. "And unfortunately, the female was right there to witness the whole tragic event."
A cellphone sitting on the passenger seat fell out of the open passenger door and landed on the ground, Byrd said.
"The female was able to call for help from right there at the scene. Otherwise she would have a walk and could have easily become lost," said Byrd, who estimated that the scene of the accident was 10 miles from Highway 101.
The accident is still under investigation.