Tragic accident in Cobble Hill Wednesday feet from closed LICH in Brooklyn
Witnesses say accident 'gruesome,' driver decapitated
Police and emergency units on Wednesday swarmed the off-ramp of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) at Atlantic Avenue and Hicks Street, just feet from the now-shuttered Long Island College Hospital (LICH), after a gruesome accident where a car plowed into the back of a large flatbed truck after a police chase.
An NYPD spokesperson told the Brooklyn Eagle that a 22-year-old male, Leroy Samuel, died in the accident, which took place at 12:02 p.m. “There was a traffic stop, but when the officer got out of his car, the driver kept going.” NYPD said the man “was DOA” at the scene, and one other person, a woman, was injured.
FDNY told the Eagle that the injured woman was taken by ambulance to Lutheran Medical Center in Sunset Park. Two other injured passengers refused treatment.
A person at the scene told the Brooklyn Eagle that “a police chase ended with the car crashing into the truck.” The man was told by a witness that the driver’s head was sheared off.
An eyewitness told the New York Post the driver’s head was in the backseat.
A white sheet was draped over a smashed black four-door Infinity stopped just behind LICH’s parking garage.
The SUNY board of trustees officially voted to sell LICH to a developer Wednesday morning. Once treating more than 50,000 patients a year in its ER, the limited emergency department there now can handle only minor health issues.