Family hopes for more on crash that killed Syosset teen

On a Sunday morning last month, Benjamin Daggett, eight days shy of his 17th birthday, was riding his bicycle north on South Oyster Bay Road in Syosset to his weekend job at McDonald’s.

About the same time, a southbound Nissan Altima was turning east from the roadway onto a Long Island Expressway service road.

What happened next, a collision between Daggett and the Nissan, left the Syosset High School junior in a battle for his life he would finally lose Wednesday, and the teenager's grieving family with unanswered questions, but also seeing his untimely death as a warning for others.

“He was special to me and he was taken away,” said Jaime Daggett, the boy's mother, late Wednesday night.

“He was a typical teenage boy doing nothing wrong. If it could happen to our average family, it can happen to you and the next person," Daggett said. "He wasn’t doing anything abnormal. He was going to work at his weekend job and planned to go to college. He had hopes and dreams.”

At 10:45 a.m. on Jan. 15, the Nissan hit Benjamin Daggett as he biked his way through the service road intersection, police said at the time. He was critically injured with head trauma and taken to Cohen’s Children's Medical Center in Queens where he remained on life support for 16 days, including Jan. 23, his 17th birthday. He died early Wednesday morning at the hospital, his mother said.

The 54-year-old male driver remained at the scene, and because of that, police said Thursday, they would not release his identity. No charges have been filed and the investigation is continuing, police said.

There is a four-way stoplight at the intersection. Police said Daggett was on his bike in the crosswalk but would not comment on who had the right of way. The skies were partly cloudy that morning, according to the National Weather Service.

On Wednesday, Syosset Central School District Superintendent Thomas Rogers sent a letter to parents notifying them of Daggett’s death. He said the district would use their mental health team at the school and in the boy's classes.

Syosset High also began the day Wednesday with an announcement and a moment of silence in his remembrance.

“Ben Daggett was a Junior at Syosset High School and although one of the newer members of the Syosset community, he had quickly become an integral part,” Rogers said in his letter. “Despite our school district’s size, I am proud that we remain a tight‐knit community; and the greater the difficulty, the tighter we become.”

He had been saving money to get his own car after his parents agreed to pay half, his mother said. He was ambitious, she added, a teen coming of age, recently quoting Mahatma Gandhi about making change in a troubled world.

The SAT prep exam was next and he had planned to study over the coming weeks while also looking ahead to working out and getting ready for his senior year on Syosset High's football team, Jaime Daggett said.

He was part of the school’s PAL program, or Peers As Leaders, working with younger children. He wanted someday to become a counselor, his mother said.

“There was a lot of good things he wanted that he didn’t get to do,” she said. “I saw a change in the last month or two. He said he didn’t realize how good he had it at home until he saw what other kids go through.”

By John Asbury

john.asbury@newsday.comJohnAsbury

John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.