Police arrested a 20-year-old driver for driving while impaired by drugs, after his truck slammed into a tree, killing a 17-year-old boy and the driver's 19-year-old girlfriend. Thomas Smith, 20, allegedly told police that he fell asleep "and woke up to passengers screaming." The group had been returning from Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ.
Smith was driving on the William Floyd Highway when his car struck a tree at 1:24 a.m. Ryan Baumgardner, 17, and Jacqueline Salvador, 19 (she lived with Smith), were killed instantly—while Salvador's 17-year-old brother, a 16-year-old girl and Smith all survived. According to the Post (which has a photo of the wreckage) Suffolk Sgt. Daniel Molloy said the force of the crash “took off the whole side of the car, the whole passenger side. It was such a bad wreck, we couldn’t tell if the seatbelts were ripped." WCBS 2 reports, "After the wreck, the pickup truck was a mangled piece of metal, the roof was sheared off, the tire was missing and the door was thrown into the woods."
Smith allegedly admitted he was on prescription drugs; it's suspected he was speeding. Molloy also said, "Any time anyone dies in a car accident it’s tragic, but they had no part in it whatsoever except being at the wrong place at the wrong time."
