Man taken to hospital after rollover crash on Gulf of Mexico Drive

First responders took a man to the hospital on Thursday morning after a rollover crash along Gulf of Mexico Drive.

The crash happened at about 6:30 a.m. near the Mobil gas station in the 400 block.

“It appears a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck [was] traveling northbound on Gulf of Mexico Drive, and he struck a curb in front of that gas station,” said Longboat Key Assistant Fire Chief Bryan Carr. “Subsequently, he hit those big boulders there, and the truck flipped over multiple times until it landed on its roof on the side of the roadway.”

Carr estimated the truck rolled somewhere between 50 and 60 feet.

“There’s a little…I guess a little planter bed that has curbing, like a 4-inch curbing with some big boulders in there,” Carr said. “So he left the roadway and hit that curb with his front end, and that caused the car to turn sideways and start rolling.”

The truck driver was the only person involved in the crash. Carr said the man was “shaken up,” but he was conscious when first responders took him to Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

“He was seat belted in and all of the airbags deployed, and that clearly saved his life for as many times as that [truck] rolled over, at least two times,” Carr said. “When we got on the scene, he was already outside of his vehicle, and we treated and took him to the hospital.”

Carr said first responders shut down the northbound lane of GMD to clear the crash.

“It was a newer Tacoma, and it was incredible how well that thing held up for rolling that many times,” Carr said. “That guy was incredibly lucky.”

The Longboat Key Police Department is conducting the crash investigation.