This incident occurred the other day, and we (Fire / Rescue) here on the North Fork are still stunned by it. Just goes to show we never know when we respond to an alarm if we are coming back. Sad thing is it will most likely be attributed to "driver error"......PLEASE, EVERYONE be careful!
Ambulance crash survivors grieve
BY JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
STAFF WRITER
May 5, 2005
As Riverhead police tried to reconstruct the ambulance accident that took the lives of two medical workers, families of the crash's survivors expressed sorrow Wednesday for those who died and thanks to those who lived.
Maryann Wowak Heilbrunn, 53, visited ambulance driver Eric Maas, 28, Wednesday. Her brother was the patient inside the ambulance.
"Two young people have lost their lives. And five minutes before that they were helping my brother live," she said through tears. "My family appreciates all these EMT workers. We couldn't survive without them."
With the ambulance sirens blaring Tuesday afternoon, Maas was driving west on Route 25 in Aquebogue when he came upon a dump truck going in the same direction and tried to pass it on the left, Riverhead Det. Sgt. Joseph Loggia said. Heidi Behr, 23, and William Stone, 30, died in the crash.
It was not known how fast Maas was driving. There were no criminal charges pending as of Wednesday, Loggia said, adding that detectives were still interviewing witnesses.
"The ambulance driver apparently was unaware the truck was making a left turn onto a driveway," Loggia said. "It appears he then took an evasive-type maneuver to avoid hitting the truck and he lost control of the ambulance." The ambulance then crashed into a tree near Church Lane.
The truck driver, whose name and employer were not released, didn't realize there was an ambulance nearby or that there was an accident, Loggia said. Police later interviewed him and he is cooperating with the investigation.
Eileen Peters, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, said Route 25 at Church Lane was repaved at the end of last year, and that road conditions there are good.
The family of Joseph Wowak, the heart attack victim being transported in the back of an ambulance that crashed, was praying for his recovery Wednesday, but also expressed gratitude for those who died while helping him live.
Wowak, 63, suffered a heart attack at home in Jamesport Tuesday afternoon when Maas, Behr and Stone arrived to take him to Central Suffolk Hospital in Riverhead. Wowak Heilbrunn was following about four cars behind the ambulance in Aquebogue, she said, but didn't see it hit the tree.
"I came upon it just after it happened," she said. "It was the most horrific experience I've ever had. I could see parts of the ambulance all scattered across the road."
Wowak was transferred from Central Suffolk Hospital in Riverhead to Stony Brook University Hospital Tuesday night.
While being treated at Central Suffolk Hospital Tuesday night, Maas was told that Behr and Stone had died.
"He's devastated," his mother, Barbara Maas, 50, said.
Maas was released from the hospital late Tuesday and was resting at home in Riverhead. "He's not up to talking right now," his mother said.
Maas, Behr and Stone were good friends, bonded by a passion for helping others, Barbara Maas said. Behr would sometimes bring her 14-month-old son Jared to the Maas home.
"I feel their pain, that's for sure," Maas' mother said of the victim's families.
Maas' brother, Justin, 21, who is a volunteer Riverhead firefighter, responded to the accident. "He helped carry his brother into the ambulance," their mother said.
She doesn't know if Maas, who is expecting the birth of his first child, will be able to resume his emergency responder work after the tragedy. "If he does, it will be a while," she said. "He's still in shock."
Staff writer Mitchell Freedman contributed to this story.
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
