Suffolk County Police Seventh Squad detectives are investigating a crash that seriously injured a motorcyclist and his passenger in Rocky Point May 12.
Thomas Lowth and his passenger, Sherry Hansen, were traveling eastbound on Main Street when he collided his 2000 American Eagle motorcycle with a 2002 Hyundai being driven by Andrew Netusil at approximately 5:20 p.m. Netusil was pulling out of a parking lot on Main Street.
Lowth, 49, of Sayville, and Hansen, 45, of Rocky Point, were both transported to Stony Brook University Hospital in serious condition. Netusil, 20, of Miller Place, stayed at the scene and was not injured.
The vehicles were impounded for a safety check. The investigation is ongoing.
Anyone with information on the crash is asked to contact the Seventh Squad at 631-852-8752.
Hundreds attended the Lax Out Cancer fundraiser in Shoreham that benefited four local children battling cancer. Photo by Kevin Redding
Alexa Boucher has attended Shoreham-Wading River’s Lax Out Cancer game for years, and this year, she’s one of the fundraiser’s beneficiaries.
In January, Alexa Boucher was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancerous tumor that’s grown on the 14-year-old’s eye socket.
She was chosen as one of four — alongside 6-year-old Grayson from Miller Place, and 1-year-old Hannah Grace and 10-year-old Jackson from Port Jefferson Station — who were honored in the middle of Thomas Cutinella Memorial Field during the ninth annual event May 6.
Alexa Boucher, above with her family, enjoys playing her guitar, basketball and softball. Photo by Kevin Redding
Shoreham-Wading River, Garden City, Miller Place and Bellport participated in three games, with all money raised through donations and raffles divided equally among the recipient’s families.
“I’m overwhelmed,” Alexa said when she arrived on the school grounds to see hundreds of families, volunteers and corporate sponsors rallying behind her. “I never would’ve imagined that I would be a recipient.”
Kimberly Boucher, Alexa’s mother, was equally overwhelmed by the outpouring support for her daughter, who has been undergoing chemotherapy at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the city.
“We’re just so blessed to live in such an amazing community; there aren’t enough words to say how much we appreciate what’s been done for Alexa,” she said. “You never think it’d be your own child that you’re coming for … we’re just so grateful [that] everybody comes together when they hear a child is sick.”
Larry and Vanessa Horowitz, whose son was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in February and has been in and out of treatment at Stony Brook Hospital the last few weeks, were grateful to be there with him.
“He’s 6 years old and deserves everything we can give him,” Larry Horowitz said as he watched Grayson, smiling ear-to-ear, pass a lacrosse ball around with his friend. “There’s so much unbelievable selfishness and fundraising and everyone getting together here. The sun is shining and this is what I’ve been praying for.”
Grayson Horowitz tosses around a lacrosse ball. Photo by Kevin Redding
His wife, reflecting on her son’s ability to muscle through his ordeal at such a young age, said, “He’s stronger than I ever imagined and it’s making us all stronger just watching him. … You don’t really know people until you go through something like this, and I have no idea how to thank everybody for doing they they’ve done for us.”
The Shoreham-Wading River-based fundraiser was started in 2008 by Tom Rotanz, the high school’s then varsity lacrosse coach, as a way to acknowledge the father of one his player’s, who succumbed to a rare salivary gland cancer in 2005, as well as others in the community affected by cancer.
Since then, the event narrowed its focus on raising money for the families of kids in Shoreham and neighborhood districts fighting cancer — starting with 10-year-old Liam McGuire, a member of Shoreham’s lacrosse program who has been in remission following a 38-month leukemia battle, and Kaitlyn Suarez, a Shoreham girls’ lacrosse superstar who joined the team after recovering from two bouts with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“It’s such an uplifting experience to feel all the love that everybody throws at these kids,” said Miller Place resident Glen Cote, who, along with his wife Renée and young son Zachary, were beneficiaries in 2014 and 2015. In June 2014, Zachary, 5 at the time, was diagnosed with Grade 4 medulloblastoma, or brain cancer.
“To have your child go through something like this, you’re down in the dumps,” the father said. “But this provides the parents and the little ones with a great feeling.”
Before the event even kicked off, $30,000 was raised for the families through sponsors, which included St. Charles Hospital and FLG Lacrosse, and the sale of program ads, T-shirts and raffle tickets.
A DJ from 101.7 FM “The Beach” emceed the fundraiser and That Meetball Place, from Patchogue, supplied food for attendees.
“They’re competitive kids and they want to play the game, but they understand the bigger purpose of giving back to kids that are not as fortunate.”
— Mike Taylor
“Every year it’s grown and grown,” said Kathy Miller, a member of the event committee and mother of a lacrosse player. “It’s teaching the players a valuable lesson about life, how precious life is and how much this giving means for the families. It’s bigger than just a lacrosse game.”
Mike Taylor, head coach of the boys’ varsity lacrosse team who opened the door for other school districts to participate when he was hired three years ago, said the players are a different breed of athletes.
“They understand the true meaning of this,” he said. “They’re competitive kids and they want to play the game, but they understand the bigger purpose of giving back to kids that are not as fortunate as they are. When they were kids seeing this event, they wanted to be part of it on the lacrosse side. Now that they’re older, and they’ve met the kids that they’re helping, it becomes a whole different thing to them.”
Joe Miller, a senior and varsity midfielder for Shoreham-Wading River’s boys’ lacrosse team, said he’s incredibly moved by what the recipients go through.
“It means a lot that we can help them out a little bit,” Miller said. “Seeing the kids and their families here, it makes it a lot more powerful and makes you feel like what you did made a difference.”
Defenseman Kyle Higgins echoed his teammate’s sentiment.
“It’s an honor to play for this kind of event,” he said. “Helping those who need support means a lot to us.”
Doctors present the Howard triplets with gifts from the hospital. Photo from Stony Brook University
By Rita J. Egan
When Center Moriches residents Amy and Mike Howard discovered she was pregnant with triplets, they never imagined how unique their children would be. All three babies, Hunter and Jackson, who are identical, and Kaden, who is fraternal, were born with craniosynostosis.
The medical condition, a congenital premature fusion of one or more sutures on a baby’s skull, changes the growth pattern of the skull causing an abnormal head shape. If not surgically repaired it could increase the chances of intracranial hypertension, which could lead to visual impairment or impaired mental development.
One of the Howard boys during the press conference. Photo by Rita J. Egan
At a May 1 press conference at Stony Brook University Hospital, the six-month-old boys were introduced to the world, accompanied by their parents and their surgeons Dr. David Chesler, assistant professor of neurosurgery, and Dr. Elliot Duboys, associate professor of plastic surgery. The procedure, which took place at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital in early January, was the first-ever reported of its kind where all three triplets had craniosynostosis.
“It’s not that uncommon with twins or multiple births that one child have [craniosynostosis] and the other not,” Chesler said. “The fact that all three of them had it was pretty unique.”
While the condition occurs in about one out of every 2,100 births, Chesler said he and Duboys were working out the numbers to see what the odds were for all three in a set of triplets to have craniosynostosis, and they estimated the chances are one in 500 trillion.
Chesler said when Kaden was born his head looked triangular while Hunter’s and Jackson’s skulls protruded in the back. The doctor explained the difference in a normal skull compared to one with craniosynostosis.
“It means that their skulls have just fused a little bit earlier,” he said. “Our skulls are normally a set of plates. They’re not one big bone, and the skull grows as a consequence of that.”
The infants wore custom-fit helmets to the press conference, which they are required to wear 23 hours a day and will continue to wear for another three months. The helmets help to guide and mold the shape of their skulls as they grow. Their mother said she cleans the helmets once a day, sometimes twice, when she washes the children’s hair, and they don’t seem to be bothered by them as they go about their everyday activities. They can even sleep with them on.
“The first two weeks when we brought them home with the helmets they didn’t like it but now it’s like putting on a baseball cap for them,” the boys’ father said.
Chesler said without the helmet the bone would grow back and then the problem that created their abnormal head shape in the beginning is reestablished.
Amy said the triplets were her first pregnancy and when she first found out she was pregnant in March 2016 the doctor told her there was only one embryo. Three weeks later when she went for her nine-week checkup, the doctor informed her she saw three babies on the sonogram. Since her doctor doesn’t deliver multiples, the new mother came to Stony Brook University Hospital, where she and her husband were alerted of the various things to watch for when dealing with a high-risk pregnancy. However, after an uneventful pregnancy doctors delivered the triplets six weeks early, Oct. 22.
“The first two weeks when we brought them home with the helmets they didn’t like it but now it’s like putting on a baseball cap for them.”
— Mike Howard
It was after the triplets’ birth that the Howards discovered their babies had craniosynostosis. Their mother said you could tell their heads were malformed.
“It was really extremely scary just thinking about having your eight- or nine-week-old baby going through surgery and having their bones cut open,” Howard said.
Chesler said while there are a number of ways to conduct the operation, when he started working at the hospital in 2014, he introduced a minimally invasive endoscopic surgery for the condition. The doctor said the surgery involves less bone being removed and less loss of blood than the alternative, open-skull surgery. The procedure takes about two hours, and the patients can go home 24 to 48 hours later.
While Kaden had the rarest form of craniosynostosis — metopic synostosis — and Hunter and Jackson had the most common form — sagittal synostosis — their surgeries were similar.
The procedure involves a small incision being made in the patient’s head, and then using an endoscope and scalpel a strip of bone is cut to remove the fused seam. This is considered a better option over the open-skull surgery, which can require a few hours of surgery and five days of recovery at the hospital. There is also less of a need for a transfusion with the endoscope surgery.
Duboys said in Kaden’s case, metopic sutures usually fuse in three to six months, but in the baby’s case it fused while he was in the uterus. With Hunter and Jackson, the sutures that fused while in the uterus usually fuse in adulthood. He said the endoscope surgery can be done much earlier than the open-skull surgery.
Duboys said they have operated on several hundred children using the open operation, and he said the endoscope procedure allows them to operate on younger children.
“Now at Stony Brook, and with Dr. Chesler, we’re able to offer both,” the doctor said. “In Dr. Chesler’s case, usually it is much better in the younger ages.”
Hunter and Jackson were able to go home after two days in the hospital and Kaden spent just one. The doctors performed the procedures on Hunter and Jackson the first day and Kaden on the second so they could all go home together. After the surgery, the three only needed Tylenol for a week, and the parents said they didn’t think their children were in much pain.
The Howards said the children have been meeting all their development milestones, and their mother added, “Hunter and Kaden are shooting up their growth chart.”
Suffolk County Police have arrested a man for driving while intoxicated after he was involved in a crash that killed a motorcyclist in Selden April 29.
Christopher Vorisek was riding a 2006 Harley Davidson motorcycle southbound on College Road when his vehicle struck a 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee traveling northbound, making a left to turn onto Palm Street at 1:09 a.m.
Vorisek, 52, of Farmingville, was transported by Selden Fire Department to Stony Brook University Hospital where he was pronounced dead. The driver of the Jeep, Francis Quinn, 59, of Selden, was not injured.
Quinn was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated. He was held overnight at the 6th Precinct and was scheduled for arraignment at First District Court.
Both vehicles were impounded for safety checks and the investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information on the crash is asked to call the Major Case Unit at 631-852-6555.
Elvin Guzman, 21, was arrested April 27 and charged with stabbing to death of Dennis Miranda Leon on April 15, outside El Rio Restaurant in Centereach, Suffolk County police said. Mugshot from SCPD
Suffolk County Police today arrested a Centereach man for stabbing a man to death outside a Centereach restaurant earlier this month.
During an altercation with another man in the rear of El Rio Restaurant, located at 2133 Middle Country Road, Dennis Miranda Leon was stabbed multiple times on April 15 at about 12:10 a.m.
Miranda Leon, 20, of Centereach, was transported to Stony Brook University Hospital where he died April 19.
Following an investigation, Elvin Guzman, 21, of Willow Street, was arrested on April 27 and charged with second-degree murder. Guzman is scheduled to be arraigned today at 1st District Court in Central Islip.
Suffolk County Police 4th Squad detectives are investigating a two-vehicle crash that critically injured a man in Hauppauge early Sunday morning, April 23.
Jonathan Zatorski was driving a 1998 Mercury Mountaineer west on the Long Island Expressway, just west of exit 55, when his vehicle rear-ended a 2002 Honda Accord. The Mercury overturned and Zatorski was ejected from the vehicle.
Zatorski, 31, of West Babylon, was transported to Stony Brook University Hospital and admitted in critical condition. The driver of the Accord, Andrew McKinley, 27, of the Bronx, refused medical attention. Both drivers were alone in their vehicles.
Both vehicles were impounded for safety checks and the investigation is continuing. Detectives are asking anyone with information on this crash to call the 4th Squad at 631-854-8452.
Suffolk County Police arrested a man for driving while ability impaired by alcohol and drugs after he was rescued from his burning vehicle in Rocky Point April 12.
Corey Tierney was driving a 2003 Hyundai Sonata northbound on County Road 21, about one mile south of Route 25A, when he lost control of his vehicle, which crashed into a wooded area and caught fire. Passing motorists, Claudio Gil and Margaret Ward, pulled an unconscious Tierney from the vehicle.
Rocky Point Fire Department Rescue responded and administered Narcan to Tierney, 21, of Mount Sinai, who regained consciousness and was transported to Stony Brook University Hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries and charged with driving while ability impaired by alcohol and drugs.
Gil, 30, of Mount Sinai, and Ward, 51, of Rocky Point, were not injured.
The front entrance to the new ambulatory care center. Photo from SBU
By L. Reuven Pasternak, M.D.
Dr. L. Reuven Pasternak
As a native Long Islander, I know that we Long Islanders like to have choices and flexibility in many aspects of our lives, and we’re not shy about saying so. Having choices and flexibility in the quality of medical care we receive is certainly no exception.
That is why, on March 1, Stony Brook Medicine opened a new, multispecialty ambulatory care center, Advanced Specialy Care, at 500 Commack Road in Commack. The new center has more than 30 specialties designed to meet the majority of families’ medical needs, all under one roof.
Not only does this provide convenience for you and your family, it provides peace of mind because it means you can expect to receive the high level of expertise and compassionate care Stony Brook Medicine primary care doctors and specialists are known to provide.
And if surgery or other specialty care or access to clinical trials is needed, you can go to Stony Brook University Hospital without any disruption in the continuity of your care. As part of the only academic medical center in Suffolk County, Advanced Specialty Care offers it all.
Stony Brook doctors located in the Commack facility include primary and specialty care internists and pediatricians, gynecologists and obstetricians, dermatologists, orthopedists and urologists, surgeons and neurosurgeons. We also have a complete imaging center on site to provide X-rays, mammograms, ultrasounds, bone densitometry, and CT and MRI scans.
Another indication of how committed we are to serving our patients in western Suffolk and beyond is the sheer size of our state-of-the-art facility. The Advanced Specialty Care center occupies nearly 120,000 square feet of space, with room to expand as additional services are added. The location is just minutes away from the Sunken Meadow Parkway (Sagtikos), the Northern State Parkway and the Long Island Expressway.
We want this to be as close to a one-stop shopping experience as possible for you and your family. Whether it’s for a regular checkup or something more, I hope you will take advantage of having the power of Stony Brook Medicine close by, under one roof, at Advanced Specialty Care in Commack.
Dr. L. Reuven Pasternak is CEO at Stony Brook University Hospital and vice president for health systems at Stony Brook Medicine.
A motor vehicle crash Feb. 18 in Rocky Point killed a woman from Port Jefferson and seriously injured her husband. Suffolk County Police 7th Squad detectives are still investigating the incident.
Florin Tilinca was driving a 2014 Jeep on Route 25A and was preparing to stop for a red light at the intersection of Fairway Drive at about 12:20 p.m. when a 2015 Subaru traveling in the westbound lane of Route 25A crossed into the eastbound lane and struck the Jeep.
The driver of the Subaru, Lucio Costanzo, 73, of Port Jefferson, was airlifted via Suffolk County Police helicopter to Stony Brook University Hospital in serious condition. His wife, Stephanie Costanzo, 73, who was a passenger in the vehicle, was transported to John T. Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson where she was pronounced dead. Tilinca and his 16-year-old son were transported to St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson with non-life-threatening injuries.
The vehicles were impounded for safety checks. Anyone with information on this crash is asked to call the 7th Squad at 631-852-8752.
While many young people look to television, YouTube videos and sports arenas for a glance at their heroes, a 23-year-old Shoreham resident sees hers every night around the kitchen table.
In Rachel Hunter’s own words in a heartfelt email, her parents — Jeffrey Hunter, a respiratory therapist at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital in Patchogue, and Donna Hunter, a neonatal nurse practitioner at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson — are “the hardest working, most loving, supportive and beautiful people” she’s ever known.
Jeffrey Jr., Jake, Rachel, Jeff Sr., and Donna Hunter at Rachel’s graduation party in June of last year. Photo from Rachel Hunter
“My parents exude the meaning of character, integrity, respect, responsibility, kindness, compassion and love,” Hunter said. “I can honestly say I’ve never seen two adults that are more amazing standards for human beings.”
Newfield High School sweethearts, the Hunters have been providing care and service for people across Long Island, consistently going above and beyond to ensure their patients are as comfortable, safe and as happy as possible.
For Jeffrey Hunter, 55, whose day-to-day job is to be responsible for every patient in the hospital — from making sure their cardiopulmonary conditions are steady, to drawing blood from arteries, to being on high alert as a member of the rapid response team — the passion for helping people comes from his upbringing in Selden.
“We lived a simple life, and I was always taught to treat people with dignity and respect … the way you would want to be treated,” he said. “I try to practice that every day of my life, not only in work, but with my daily activities.”
He said while the job can be emotionally harrowing at times — working at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital for 31 years, Hunter establishes close relationships with patients who end up passing away after fighting conditions that worsen over time— but it’s worthwhile and extremely rewarding when he can help somebody and bring relief to family members.
“Just to see the look on someone’s face if you can make them feel better, even just by holding their hand … it’s the simple things and it really doesn’t take much, but I think the world needs a lot more of that these days,” he said. “I’m just a general people-person and try to comfort patients in their time of need. It can be really dangerous and sad at times, but I just try to remain hopeful.”
“Just to see the look on someone’s face if you can make them feel better, even just by holding their hand … it’s the simple things.”
— Jeffrey Hunter
Rachel Hunter recalled a day when her father came home from work and told her about an older man in the hospital who felt abandoned and forgotten by his kids, who never called or sent birthday cards.
“I held back tears as my dad told me he sent him a birthday card this year,” she said. “Many leave their workday trying as hard as possible to forget about the long, stressful day, but not my dad. He left work thinking ‘what else can I do? How else can I make a difference?’”
Donna Hunter, 54, said her passion for providing care to neonates, infants and toddlers and emotional support and compassion for their parents and families started when she found out her own parents had full-term newborns who died soon after delivery.
She graduated from Adelphi University with a degree in nursing and received a master’s degree as a perinatal nurse practitioner from Stony Brook University. When fielding questions from people asking why she didn’t go through all her schooling to become a doctor, she says, “because I wanted to be a nurse and do what nurses do.”
“I’m one of those very fortunate people that love the career that I chose,” she said. “Every time I go to work, I’m passionate about being there, I’m excited, and it’s always a new adventure for me.”
Highly respected among staff for the 26 years she’s worked at St. Charles, she tends to newborns in need of specialized medical attention — from resuscitation and stabilization to rushing those born critically ill or with a heart condition to Stony Brook University Hospital.
Donna Hunter during the delivery of her cousin. Photo from Donna Hunter
“Babies are the most vulnerable population, but are incredibly resilient,” she said. “Babies have come back literally from the doors of death and have become healthy, and to be part of that in any small way is very satisfying.”
Maryanne Gross, the labor and delivery head nurse at St. Charles, called her “the calm voice in the room.”
“Donna is who you want with you if you’re having an issue or in a bad situation,” Gross said. “She’s an excellent teacher and just leads you step by step on what you need to do to help the baby. She’s great to be around and I think she was born to do [this].”
Hunter has also dedicated herself to creating a better future regarding neonatal withdrawal, saying the hospital is seeing more and more babies in the Intensive Care Unit affected by their mothers’ opioid use.
She recently gave a 45-minute seminar on the subject at a chemical dependency symposium by St. Charles outlining the newborn’s symptoms, treatment options and what it means for future health. She not only wants to help the baby but also the mother, providing resources to help them recover successfully.
Even with all their accomplishments in the field, Jeffrey and Donna Hunter consider family their top priority. With three children — Jeffrey Jr., 27; Jake, 24; and Rachel —they take advantage of every opportunity they have to be together.
“It’s a juggle as to who’s working, who’s got to go to a meeting, but we make it happen,” Donna Hunter said. “We even take time to play games at our kitchen table … a lot of families don’t do that anymore. We’re very fortunate.”
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