Cardiologist gets jail time in Reedley nurse’s hit-and-run death

After more than five years, what does eight months in jail mean to the Reedley family of Julianna Ramos, the nurse killed while stopping to help at a Highway 99 crash? Dr. James Comazzi, a Sonora cardiologist, was sentenced Wednesday in Fresno County Superior Court to jail and two years of probation for the 2021 hit-and-run death. The punishment brought courtroom closure, but it could not undo the loss of the 26-year-old mother of three.

Ramos was killed in the early morning hours of Feb. 10, 2021, around 12:30 a.m., on northbound Highway 99 near the Manning Avenue exit in Fresno County. California Highway Patrol investigators said she had stopped to help the driver of a Hyundai sedan involved in a collision with a semi-truck when she was struck. One report said her 4-month-old baby was still in the car at the time.

Comazzi was not found right away. Authorities said it took an eight-month investigation to identify him, and an anonymous tip through Valley Crime Stoppers helped lead investigators to him. He was arrested at his Sonora home and booked into Fresno County jail in October 2021. At the time of his arrest, he was described as a 68-year-old cardiologist from Tuolumne County; at sentencing, local reporting described him as 72. Comazzi worked as a cardiologist at Adventist Health Sonora.

He pleaded no contest to hit-and-run and vehicular manslaughter before receiving the sentence of eight months in jail and two years of probation. For Ramos’s family, the case has carried a different measure of time, stretching from the crash scene on Highway 99 to the final court ruling more than five years later.

The sentence is likely to stir debate in Fresno County over whether penalties are strong enough when a driver flees a fatal crash, especially in a case where the victim was a Good Samaritan helping someone else. Ramos’s death has remained vivid in Reedley because it joined public grief, highway danger and the long wait for accountability in one case. Valley Crime Stoppers says anonymous tipsters may be eligible for rewards of up to $3,000, a reminder that small breaks in old cases can still lead to arrests years later.