A two-vehicle crash on Napeague near the Ocean Colony Resort Tuesday morning resulted in serious injuries, according to East Hampton Town police, and traffic backups on the stretch for much of the afternoon. Detectives were still investigating as of Wednesday.
Kathleen F. Mercurio, 83, of Montauk was westbound at about 11:15 a.m. when she collided with a Freightliner box truck headed east. Multiple ambulances and a Suffolk County medevac helicopter were called to respond. Bruce Stonemetz, chief of the Amagansett Fire Department, confirmed Tuesday afternoon that three people had been injured.
Ms. Mercurio, a member of the Montauk Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary, was most seriously hurt, and had to be extricated from her vehicle. She was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital.
The driver of the truck, Sergio Ysambert Jr., 25, and his passenger, Pablo Salazar, 44, both of New Jersey, were taken by ambulance to Stony Brook’s emergency complex in East Hampton with what town police, who took over the scene after the ambulance left, called minor injuries.
At around noon, police posted on Facebook that a detour had been set up using Napeague Meadow Road, but warned of slow-moving traffic. By 1 p.m., they said that a single lane of travel had been opened “using the westbound shoulder, allowing for intermittent traffic to pass the scene.”
With only one lane of travel open for much of the afternoon on part of the road, drivers heading into or out of Montauk faced backups of an hour or more. By 6:30 p.m., police reported that all lanes of travel were finally open.
With many Montauk School bus drivers living in the hamlet, many routes were unaffected that afternoon. Classes were dismissed at the usual time, said Josh Odom, the school’s superintendent. Drivers who could not make it through the closure were covered by local drivers. Both East Hampton and Amagansett districts had offered assistance, Mr. Odom said.
“Luckily at high school dismissal time we already had a few buses in East Hampton,” he added. Students were picked up without delay, but, like everyone, faced significant delays on Napeague. Mr. Odom said police were in close contact with the district throughout the day.
A much-anticipated girls softball game between Montauk and East Hampton did have to be rescheduled, and Montauk’s tennis and track teams, which practice outside the hamlet, had to cancel practices.
Jordan Frederico, who teaches at the Montauk School, said he was caught in traffic on Old Montauk Highway just before 5 p.m. for some time, but that traffic seemed to start to ease at around 6:40 when he passed Shark Bar. His commute to Sag Harbor normally takes an hour, but took him almost two and a half hours on Tuesday, he said.
Jenna Lipman, who also teaches at the school and lives in Springs, heard from colleagues who’d left the building at 3 p.m. that they were at a standstill at the west overlook not long after. She decided to take the train to East Hampton after leaving school at 4 p.m.
“I was not alone on that train,” Ms. Lipman said. “The conductor noted that it was much more crowded than usual.”
The road closure resulting from the accident highlighted for many people how tenuous that section of Route 27 is in the event of an emergency. The accident happened east of Napeague Meadow Road, meaning that there were no other roads to detour around it.
The box truck was still lying on its side at the scene until after 5 p.m. Both vehicles were impounded by police for safety inspections.
Note: This story has been updated since it originally appeared online.
