A naked surfer washed up dead near a San Diego beach early Thursday with wounds consistent with a shark attack, authorities said.

The 42-year-old man, who wasn't further identified because his family hadn't been notified, appeared to have been attacked after he died under other unusual circumstances in the water — possibly suicide — said Lt. John Everhart of San Diego Lifeguard Services, who cited a preliminary medical examiner's report.

No shark sightings had been reported in the area, and officials didn't say what type of shark might have attacked the man. Everhart told reporters the body was found in shallow water about 250 yards from shore about 3:35 a.m. (6:35 a.m. ET) near Tourmaline Beach.

"There were wounds on the body and trauma on the body," Everhart said. "The medical examiner has indicated that the wounds are consistent with what they would expect from a shark attack."

NBC San Diego: Shark wounds found on surfer's body

Police, fire rescue crews and the Coast Guard had been searching for the man since he was reported missing Wednesday night by his fiancée, Everhart said.

Beyond the alarming prospect of a human-eating shark prowling the San Diego coast, other unusual factors raised questions about the case. Everhart said the man may have had an unknown medical condition or may even have set out to kill himself.

The man was naked, and there were no signs of a struggle, authorities said. His wetsuit had been carefully tied around the surfboard; neither the wetsuit nor the board showed any signs of damage when they were found well offshore.

Everhart called it odd "that someone would take their wetsuit off while they're out at sea and then tie it around their surfboard and then disappear."

"I've never seen anything like it," he said.

Tommy Calagna of Pacific Beach told NBC San Diego that he and his girlfriend saw the man sitting on his board several hundred yards out in the surf Wednesday evening — "really, really far out there, like double the distance of where the other surfers were at the time."

Calagna, a veteran surfer, agreed that it was highly unusual that a surfer would take off his wetsuit before coming out of the water.

Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

Related:

Thousands of swarming sharks empty Florida beaches

Shark attacks on the rise — with the economy

Jody Taylor / Sixty5Media

The 70-year-old driver, who wasn't identified, was suspended for about 40 minutes in his car, which was stuck in the side of a children's clinic Wednesday, Feb. 6, near San Diego.

Published 6:50 p.m. ET: A driver trying to retrieve a ticket from a toll booth hit the gas and rammed into a California children's clinic Wednesday, leaving him and his car bizarrely hovering 20 feet over a stairwell impaled into the side of the building.

The 70-year-old driver, who wasn't identified, was pulled out through a passenger door about 40 minutes after the crash, which occurred in Sierra Mesa about 9:45 a.m. He was taken to a hospital for evaluation, authorities told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Witnesses told NBC 7 of San Diego that the driver was having trouble pulling a ticket from a toll booth several yards away when he began rolling backward in neutral. He then hit the gas, jumped a curb and speeded at about 30 mph into the side of a clinic run by Rady Children's Hospital.

More details and photos from NBC San Diego: Car crashes into building, traps driver

The car, a Toyota Camry, stuck there, its back end resting on a walkway and its front left wheel on a ledge. It was about a 20-foot drop to the stairwell below, firefighters told the Union-Tribune.

Bystanders said they had to dive out of the way to avoid getting hit. No one was injured. 

"I would've been right in front of his car," said Jody Taylor of Sixty5 Media, who took several photographs at the extraordinary scene. "So he flew through — almost hit a van pulling out ... and then went right into the building." 

Taylor told NBC 7 that she yelled at the driver, who had started to unbuckle his safety belt, to stay in the car.

"You could see the glass in the windows below cracking," Taylor said. "So the security guard, I looked at him and I said, 'Get everyone out of that building, 'cause you don't know what's going to happen.'

"Six inches more, and he would've gone straight down or through the window, because they said that's an exam room right there." 

No one was in exam room at the time, hospital officials said. The man's car was removed about 1 p.m.

Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com