Families Mourn After Ambulance Crash Leaves Driver, Patient Dead On Long Island
LAKEVIEW, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Two families were in mourning Thursday after an ambulance crash on the Southern State Parkway on Long Island left their loved ones dead.
As CBS2's Sonia Rincon reported, the accident happened at 12:05 p.m. Wednesday on the expressway near Exit 18 (Eagle Avenue) in Lakeview, Long Island. The ambulance did not have its lights and sirens on before the crash.
The ambulance veered off the roadway and hit a brick overpass wall. Following the crash, video showed the front of the ambulance completely crushed, with its patient compartment perched precariously on an embankment.
Killed in the crash were driver Larry Fuller and patient James Larson.
The ambulance hit a light pole before crashing into the side of the overpass. Late Thursday, it was still not clear what sent it out of control.
The ambulance only had about three and a half miles to go. It was taking Larson to the rehab center in Uniondale where he was hoping to begin the next chapter of his life.
The 36-year-old patient had recently had a second heart transplant.
"The first one failed and the second one was good," said Larson's sister, Holly Lignowski.
Lignowski said her brother was determined to live.
"He fought a really hard fight. I could not have done what he did. Nobody could have done what he did," she said. "He fought hard. He really did beat the odds."
Lignowski said Larson loved and drew strength from his fiancée and 7-year-old daughter.
"They're a great family," she said.
And when Lignowski spoke with her brother last week, she said he was craving the independence he missed.
"He just always did it on his own. He worked and made his own money and did everything by himself," she said. "So he was definitely ready to get back out there."
The crash also left another daughter without her dad. Jillyne Fuller, 20, of the Bronx said her father, Larry, was someone she loved just to talk to.
"Anytime I needed him, he was there for me," Fuller said. "Like, if I went through problems at home or outside, he was always there. He never left me hanging."
Witnesses told police the ambulance was not speeding. As police investigated the cause of the crash, the tragedy of it was sinking in.
"It really hit me that he's gone," Jillyne Fuller said.
"I don't think it's anything that can be explained, honestly," said Lignowski.
A second emergency medical technician who was in the back of the ambulance was recovering from non-life-threatening injuries late Thursday.
Police said they were looking into the possibility that the driver had a medical emergency of his own behind the wheel.
