Man apparently crushed to death by truck

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A 51-year-old Central Point man was apparently crushed to death while working on his pickup truck at the Rogue Valley Mall parking lot Thursday night, Medford police said.

A woman leaving work at a store in the mall saw a man lying under a truck in the parking lot near the Macy’s Home Store at about 9 p.m. and called 9-1-1.

As police, the Medford Fire Department and a Mercy Flights ambulance arrived, she flagged them down and pointed out the truck.

Emergency crews found Mark Allen Rowland, of the 2400 block of Savannah Drive, Central Point, dead under a 2003 black GMC pickup.

A Medford police detective, a deputy medical examiner with the Jackson County Sheriff’s department and members of a multi-agency Serious Traffic Accident Reconstruction Team (STAR) investigated.

Their initial report indicates that Rowland was working on the undercarriage of the pickup while it was running and parked on an incline. The vehicle rolled backward and pinned him.

Investigators suspect that he was trapped under the truck for about 15 minutes before the woman noticed him when she got off work.

— Anita Burke

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