PAUL SQUIRE PHOTO | Peconic Bay Medical Center treated 18 victims from the accident on the LIE Wednesday, the hospital’s president said.
More than a dozen victims from Wednesday afternoon’s massive pileup on the Long Island Expressway were taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead for treatment, hospital officials said.
The 35-vehicle crash claimed the life of a 68-year-old Blue Point woman — whose name had not been released as of late Wednesday — and injured 33 others including a 57-year-old man who was seriously injured, Suffolk County police said.
The LIE’s eastbound lanes were expected to be closed to traffic overnight between exits 66 and 69, police said.
Both sides of the highway were shut down in the hours after the crash.
At Peconic Bay Medical Center, hospital officials enacted a emergency plan after the pileup to deal with the influx of expected victims, said hospital president and CEO Andrew Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell said 16 victims, including adults and children who were in car seats at the time of the accident, were being treated for non life-threatening injuries after the pileup. The rest went to hospitals in Stony Brook, Port Jefferson and East Patchogue, police said.
Two other victims were being evaluated for more serious injuries, he said, though it was not clear if that number included the 57-year-old man mentioned in a police report issued about 10 p.m. Wednesday as being seriously injured.
The Riverhead medical center had surgeons, nurses and orthopedists in the emergency room treating the patients Wednesday afternoon. Security guards were blocking off the emergency room parking lot to allow ambulances from the crash to drop off their patients quickly, Mr. Mitchell said.
The crash happened just west of west of the William Floyd Parkway in Shirley about 2:40 p.m. where the driver of an eastbound tractor-trailer, Raymond Simoneau, 42, of Rockingham, Vt., struck a number of cars, police said.
“Following the initial collision, a chain-reaction crash occurred,” Suffolk police said in a release. “The tractor-trailer, which was carrying storm debris, and two additional vehicles caught fire and were extinguished by fire department personnel.”
Wading River Fire Department sent an ambulance to the scene of the crash to assist, first assistant fire chief Jim Evans said. Riverhead fire officials said they were not called to the accident. In all, five fire departments and EMS workers from 19 ambulance districts responded to the scene.\
Click here for a Newsday video and coverage from the scene.