Man injured after car goes over embankment along Highway 1 in Sonoma County

A man was taken to the hospital with moderate injuries early Saturday after driving his car off Highway 1, over an embankment and into a field.

The man, who has not yet been identified, was driving north on Highway 1 before 6:30 a.m. Saturday when he approached a sharp right curve in the road just past Goat Rock Road south of Jenner and the Russian River. Instead of curving to the east, the man, who drove a Honda car of unknown model, went straight, Monte Rio Fire Department Chief Steve Baxman said.

The man was taken by ambulance to Kaiser Permanente’s Santa Rosa medical center.

The area was shrouded in fog, and the roads were wet early Saturday morning, Baxman said.

The initial report indicated the man had gone over “a cliff,” Baxman and dispatchers said, which raised alarm given Highway 1’s proximity to sheer cliffs along the coast between Jenner and Bodega Bay.

But the area the man went off the road is relatively flat, and inland from the coast, Baxman said.