Two injured when SUV crashes into pillar at Heckscher Park in Huntington

An SUV with two people inside left the road and plowed through a metal fence and into Heckscher Park in Huntington late Thursday before slamming into a concrete pillar near an intersection, first responders and witnesses at the scene said.

The black Chevy Navigator was heading west on Main Street just past Town Hall about 10:45 p.m. when the vehicle missed a curve in the road, careened down a park embankment and hit the pillar, according to a witness who captured part of the crash on his car camera.

A town official at the scene said both the driver, a male, and the passenger, a female, were taken by ambulance to a hospital.The driver’s condition was unknown early Friday. The passenger suffered significant injuries, the official said.

Suffolk County police officers at the scene, as well as other first responders, declined to comment. A spokesperson at police headquarters had no information about the crash about 11:45 p.m.

The witness, who declined to give his name, said he was sitting in the northbound lane of Prime Street at the intersection of Main when the SUV came barreling into view on his left and slammed into the pillar.

Video recorded on his Tesla’s camera first shows the park’s southwest entrance with streetlights illuminating an otherwise nearly pitch-black scene. A pair of headlights burst into view and the Navigator is shown hitting the concrete barrier, creating a cloud of smoke and dust.

“As soon as I saw the car I said ‘let’s go!’ the witness said, as he stood at the shattered fence where the SUV had jumped the sidewalk and crashed through about 30 minutes earlier. 

Had the pillar not stopped the SUV, the witness said, he was certain it would have hit his car.

Suffolk police in the area were on the scene shortly after the crash and tended to the driver who had crawled from the wreckage, according to other witnesses. Additional officers, along with arriving Huntington firefighters, used pry bars and other tools to free the other occupant from the crumpled passenger side.

Witnesses said they heard the driver shout out about his wife in the passenger seat and the need to pick up his daughter. He then passed out.

Jillian Trimboli, 27, lives a few doors down from the crash scene. Trimboli said she was drifting off to sleep when a large “boom” jolted her awake.

She came out and stood with other residents to watch as rescuers worked to free the passenger while police closed off the intersection and redirected late-night traffic.

“It sounded like a plow hitting then pavement, Trimboli said. “But without snow.”

With Nicholas Grasso