Three Bay Shore youths killed in Florida highway crash, police say

Three Bay Shore youths — aged 10, 12 and 14 — were killed on a southbound Florida highway near the Georgia border when the sedan they were traveling in slowed down over a bridge and was struck from behind by an SUV, according to the Florida State Highway Patrol.

The 24-year-old male driver of the sedan in the Saturday morning crash on I-95 sustained serious injuries while a 47-year-old female passenger and a second 14-year-old boy suffered critical injuries, a Florida State Highway Patrol accident report said.

All six occupants of the vehicle are from Bay Shore, according to the report prepared by highway patrol crash and homicide investigators in Nassau County, Florida.

The three deceased passengers were identified only as a 10-year-old girl and 12- and 14-year-old boys.

The southbound sedan slowed down or stopped “for unknown reasons” at 7:40 a.m. Saturday on the bridge, which connects Florida to Georgia, when the SUV hit it, the highway patrol report said. The driver of the SUV, a 23-year-old male from Apex, North Carolina “was unable to react in time,” the report said,

He suffered minor injuries, according to the report.

Public traffic camera footage showed the emergency response to the crash. Police vehicles, an ambulance and a fire truck could be seen in the closed southbound lanes at the crash site, on a downward slope near the end of Scrubby Bluff Bridge.

People cross the bridge over the St. Mary’s River to go between Georgia and Florida.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.