A 69-year-old Apple Valley man was killed Wednesday morning when he lost control of his pickup truck while merging onto southbound Interstate 35 in Carlton County and it rolled down an embankment.

John Frederick Schultz was coming down the Hwy. 33 ramp onto the freeway just before 10 a.m. when he lost control of the vehicle on icy pavement and it went down an embankment and landed in a grove of trees, according to the Minnesota State Patrol. He was taken to a Duluth hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Schultz was wearing a seat belt, and alcohol was not involved, the patrol said. He was alone in his pickup.

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