Lydia Ciminelli, killed by hit-and-run driver in Ronkonkoma, on way to exercise class, relative says

A woman killed Monday morning by a hit-and-run driver while crossing a street in Ronkonkoma had been heading to an exercise class, according to a sister-in-law.

Going to the class was something Lydia Ciminelli, 72, would regularly do, sister-in-law Fran Masi of Central Islip said Tuesday.

“It’s just a horrible way to go. I mean, she was youthful. She shouldn’t have died that way. I just can’t imagine what had happened,” Masi said  in an interview, lamenting both the driver’s callousness in leaving Ciminelli behind and the conditions of the road where she was struck.

“She was just going to take an exercise class,” Masi said.

Ciminelli, of Lake Ronkonkoma, was crossing Rosevale Avenue south of Motor Parkway when she was struck and killed, according to a news release from the Suffolk County Police Department.

She was not crossing at an intersection, the nearest one being between 50 and 100 feet away and including a traffic light, according to an email Tuesday afternoon from the department's press office. Asked the basis for these conclusions, the office said the point of impact can be determined but did not provide specifics. How fast the driver was going is under investigation, according to the email, which said the driver hadn't been caught.

Ciminelli was one of six people killed on Long Island roads over 24 hours from Sunday to Monday.

On Friday night two men were killed by a hit-and-run driver in Farmingville, Suffolk police said.

Ekrem Sahinbey Polat, 27, of Bay Shore and Battal Koc, 38, of Middle Island were crossing the street in front of a shopping plaza on Horseblock Road near Abner Drive around 11:20 p.m. when they were struck by a driver in a light-colored SUV, the police said. That driver is still being sought.

At least 70 pedestrians were killed on Long Island last year — 50 in Suffolk and 20 in Nassau, according to preliminary statistics maintained by the Institute for the University at Albany-based Traffic Safety Management & Research.

There were 74 fatal hit and run crashes in Nassau and Suffolk counties between 2017 and 2021, the last year for which statistics are available, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The most in the five-year period was in 2021, with 19, and the fewest was in 2018.  The statistics don’t say how many of the drivers were caught.  

Before retiring, Ciminelli — who was born in Central Islip and spent much of her life in Brooklyn with stints in upstate New York, New Jersey and North Carolina — had flower shops in the borough and in a strip mall in Lindenhurst on Montauk Highway, Masi said.

Ciminelli's husband, Dave, died about a decade ago, Masi said.

Now her siblings and other surviving relatives must plan a funeral.

“It is so terrible,” Masi said. “No reason at all.”

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.