Nassau cop seriously hurt in parkway accident
A Nassau County police officer responding to a call about an overturned vehicle was seriously injured Monday morning after he lost control of his patrol cruiser on the Southern State Parkway and was broadsided by another car, police said.
The roads were slick as Officer Eric Surface, assigned to the Fifth Precinct in Elmont, drove onto the parkway's eastbound lanes at Exit 16 in the 7:45 a.m. accident, state police said.
Surface, who was responding to another accident on the parkway, sustained broken ribs, a dislocated pelvis and internal bleeding, Nassau and state police said.
Officer Eric Surface, assigned to the Fifth Precinct in Elmont, drove onto the parkway's eastbound lanes at Exit 16 in the 7:45 a.m. accident..
"It was apparently raining. The officer lost control and his car was perpendicular to traffic when he was struck on the driver's side," Trooper Frank Bandiero, a state police spokesman, said. Surface, a two-year veteran of the Nassau Police Department, was knocked unconscious.
He was taken by helicopter to Nassau University Medical Center where he was admitted in serious but stable condition, Bandiero said, but his injuries were not considered life threatening.
Two other cars were involved in the accident, which took place on a three-lane stretch of the Southern, and a woman in one of those cars was injured, he said.
The officer's car made contact with a Hyundai, causing the police car to turn perpendicular to oncoming traffic. A Cadillac sedan then struck the police car on the driver's side. A woman in the Cadillac injured her wrist and was taken to Franklin General Hospital in Valley Stream, police said.
The crash occurred east of Exit 16 at Franklin Avenue in North Valley Stream. The roadway was closed to Exit 17 during the investigation. The overturned vehicle the officer was responding to was just east of Exit 17, police said.
Slick roads and flooding made traveling difficult and dangerous Monday, with several crashes causing road and lane closures on major, metro-area highways.
Earlier, a single-car crash involving a black Nissan Altima briefly shut down the eastern Long Island Expressway at Exit 24, Main Street.
In that crash, the car suffered a violent impact with a tree on the right-hand eastbound shoulder of the road near the entrance ramp to the highway.
Another crash briefly closed down lanes on the expressway between Exit 51 and Exit 52.
Posted Monday, July 14, 2008
Megan's Law
Nassau PBA History
Most Wanted
Crime Stats
Police Blotter
Sex Offenders
