Doctor: Victims injured in fatal LIE crash expected to fully recover

Victims injured in a fatal four-vehicle crash on the Long Island Expressway in Shirley who were treated at two area hospitals are expected to fully recover, a trauma unit director said Sunday.

Dr. James Vosswinkel, director of the trauma units for both Stony Brook University Hospital and Long Island Medical Center in Brookhaven, said that “luckily” all of the patients who went to those hospitals were in stable condition.

“Everybody is stable and expected to fully recover,” said Vosswinkel, who is also a Suffolk County police surgeon.

The conditions of other patients at other hospitals were not immediately available and their identities had not been released by police.

A woman was killed and eight were injured in the accident that happened about 3:30 p.m. Saturday near Exit 68 on the Long Island Expressway, involving a pickup truck, two minivans and a motorcycle, authorities said.

Police on Sunday still had not released the woman’s name.

Police said the accident happened when the driver of the 2004 Ford pickup, Peter Visconti Jr., 37, of Mastic, was traveling west and crashed into a 2011 Honda minivan going in the same direction. The pickup then careened across the highway into eastbound traffic and crashed into a 2013 Toyota minivan and the motorcycle.

The woman who was killed was in the second minivan that was struck, and she was pronounced dead at Long Island Medical Center, Suffolk police said. Seven people from that vehicle were taken to local hospitals, police added.

Two patients required emergency surgery to repair traumatic injuries, said Vosswinkel, who called the crash “horrific.”

Suffolk police said Visconti was arrested and charged with driving while ability impaired by drugs, third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.

A Suffolk police spokesman said they do not disclose what type of drug or drugs are involved in driving while ability impaired cases.

Visconti was taken to Long Island Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries and it was unknown when he would be arraigned.

The same stretch of roadway in August 2016 was the site of a three-car accident that killed five people and injured six others. The victims in that crash included a Suffolk County political aide, an 81-year-old man and a 10-year-old boy.