Suffolk first responders honor fallen trooper with noontime tribute

First responders from more than a dozen Suffolk fire departments and ambulance companies paused briefly Wednesday from their busy jobs to honor a New York State trooper who died Friday of injuries suffered years earlier while doing his in Commack.

At noon, they flashed the emergency lights on their vehicles to coincide with Trooper Joseph Gallagher’s funeral Wednesday in upstate West Seneca. Gallagher, a married father of two, suffered a traumatic brain injury on Dec. 18, 2017, when a texting driver struck his patrol vehicle while the 38-year-old trooper assisted a driver on the Long Island Expressway in Commack.

Gallagher lost the ability to walk, talk or eat without help.

He died Friday in what State Police officials said was a "line of duty death."

Ten Suffolk County ambulance companies, as well as the Brookhaven, Bellport and Hagerman fire departments, took part in the one-minute tribute, organizers said.

The trooper's death served as a reminder of what can happen when someone texts while on the road, said Greg Miglino, chief of the South Country Ambulance Company in Brookhaven.

"We’ve seen a lot of people texting and driving," Miglino said. "It only takes a second to take your eyes off the road and for your vehicle to make contact with somebody else."

Jesse Cohen, the 24-year-old West Islip man whose vehicle struck Gallagher on a westbound LIE overpass to the southbound Sagtikos Parkway as he helped a stranded motorist, was distracted by three separate texting conversations, prosecutors said later. In a Central Islip courtroom packed with state troopers, Cohen pleaded guilty in October to third-degree assault with criminal negligence, a misdemeanor. He was sentenced to 30 days time served, three years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service.

"Although we cannot physically be upstate for the burial and funeral of Trooper Gallagher," Jamie Atkinson, president of the board of directors of the Community Ambulance Company in Sayville, said in a statement, "we wanted to show our support for his family, co-workers and honor his service."