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Two die in ambulance crash

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The driver of a Hunter EMS ambulance, and the patient being transported, died after the ambulance struck the exit 18 overpass of the Southern State Parkway just after 12:00 pm on April 20. A second EMT, who suffered a concussion, a broken femur and internal injuries during the crash, was reported stable a day after the accident.

Queens resident, Larry Fuller, 55, the driver of a Hunter EMS ambulance, veered off the road, hit a light post, and then crashed into the stone wall abutment at exit 18 off the parkway and died immediately. The patient, James Larson, 36, of Elmont, also died at the scene. Larson was being transported from Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan to a rehabilitation center on Long Island after spending months in the hospital due to multiple organ transplants. The second EMT, Renato Endrada, 47, of Queens, suffered from a concussion, a broken femur and multiple internal injuries due to the crash.

Lakeview Fire Department Chief Patrick McNeill said another ambulance that was traveling shortly behind the Hunter EMS ambulance observed it veering off the road. “He said he did not see the vehicle's brake lights go on at any time during the crash,” he said.

McNeill added that a Hunter EMS employee told him that it was Fuller’s first transport of the day.

Roughly 20 members of the Lakeview Fire Department responded to the scene, along with a team of other emergency personnel from Nassau County’s Emergency Services Unit, Nassau County’s ambulance and New York State Police. Eastbound lanes of the parkway were closed to all traffic for hours immediately following the accident

The county’s emergency services units deployed a wrecker boom to the scene that lifted the ambulance up off the parkway and onto Lake Drive, where they recovered the bodies from the ambulance.

Calls to Hunter EMS have not yet been returned.