A car with a baby on board crashed into the Surf Lodge in Montauk on Sunday morning, and the driver, the child’s father, took off with her in her car seat without reporting the accident. East Hampton Town police found them later at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital.
Capt. Chis Anderson said police received word of the Edgemere Street accident at 6:51 a.m. and found that a 2013 Honda Civic had gone through a pair of double doors within the restaurant, where a store is located. The hotel and entertainment hot spot is closed for the winter. Before the car hit the building, it sheered a fire hydrant off at its base.
The driver was nowhere to be found. Officers checked with various walk-in clinics and urgent care facilities on the South Fork, and eventually tracked down the driver, Jinson Chunchi-Chuchuca, 24, of Montauk, who had gone “sometime later” to the emergency room at the hospital with the baby. Her mother, who was not in the car, told Captain Anderson the child is 9 months old.
Neither the father nor the child was hurt in the accident. They were released from the hospital soon after.
Mr. Chunchi-Chuchuca was not cooperative with police, other than admitting to having been in an accident, Captain Anderson said. He was issued a citation for leaving the scene of an accident involving property damage, a violation.
The hole the car left behind has been boarded up. Ann Glennon, the East Hampton Town building inspector, is awaiting an engineer’s report to assess structural damage.