Cab driver tried to get help for homeless man later found dead

Hours before a homeless man was found dead early Monday morning, a Carson City cab driver picked him up from a bar and was worried about him, so she called police, she said.

Cathy Strouse said she picked the 60-year-old man up from Toad's bar on William Street and dropped him off in front of the Blue Bull bar on East Telegraph Street just before 3 a.m. Around 6:30 a.m. a newspaper delivery driver found him dead in the road near where Strouse had left him.

His name is being withheld until next of kin can be notified.

"He had bruises all over his face and said he'd had a seizure and had just been in the hospital," said Strouse. "He just looked medically not safe and very unsteady on his feet so I called my boss, and we were not comfortable with just leaving him there alone."

Strouse called dispatch and asked for a deputy to come out.

"I didn't know what to do. That's why we called the sheriff's dispatch to get them over there. We're not equipped to diagnose anything," she said.

When the officer arrived, both Strouse and her boss each gave the officer $10 to give to the homeless man and they left.

Strouse thought that the officer would have paramedics come and check out the victim or take him to the hospital.

"I didn't think he would leave him there," she said.

But video surveillance from the Carson Nugget shows the victim entered the casino after the cab driver and deputies left. The video also shows him walk out of the casino and toward Telegraph Street not long before his body was found in the street.

Investigators believe he suffered another seizure. An autopsy to determine the cause of death is today.

Sheriff Ken Furlong noted that despite the cab driver's concerns, deputies are not able to force someone to seek medical attention.

"If they've been discharged from the hospital there is nothing we can do about it," he said.