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TUSTIN : Man Dies Driving; Crash Cuts Power

By HENRY CHU

A driver who apparently suffered a fatal heart attack crashed his car into a power pole Friday, knocking out electricity to nearby homes for several hours, police said.

Howard Ruud of Santa Ana was heading west on Bryan Avenue, just east of Browning Avenue, at 8:09 a.m. when he lost control of his Mercury, Police Lt. Frank Semelsberger said.

Ruud, whose 77th birthday was Friday, was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where he was pronounced dead. Relatives said Ruud had a history of heart problems, Semelsberger said.

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Homes in the area had a power outage until about 1 p.m.

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Henry Chu

Henry Chu first joined the Los Angeles Times in 1990 and worked primarily out of the San Fernando Valley office before moving to the foreign staff in 1998. He served as bureau chief in Beijing from 1998 to 2003, Rio de Janeiro from 2004 to 2005, New Delhi from 2006 to 2008 and London from 2009 to 2014. He was a 2014-15 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. From 2016-19 he was international editor at Variety magazine. A graduate of Harvard University, Chu returned to The Times in March 2020 as deputy news editor based in London. He left in 2024.

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