A soused Long Island teen driver was arrested early yesterday after she plowed into two firefighters and sped on, police said.
Jillian Lazinsky, 17, of West Islip, was charged with fleeing the scene of an accident and DWI after she rammed the firefighter pedestrians, fled to a side street where cops found her, and later flunked a sobriety test, investigators said.
Suffolk County police said three members of the West Islip Fire Department were on overnight EMS duty at 1 a.m. Thursday when they headed on foot to a 7-Eleven.
Thomas Devlin, 19, Joseph Ortiz, 18, and Alyssa Saenz, 20, all of West Islip, had completed a training regimen earlier and stayed on for an extra shift.
Cops said Devlin and Ortiz were crossing Higbie Avenue at Union Boulevard with Saenz behind them when a white 2005 Honda Accord smashed into the two men, propelling them 50 feet down the street.
“Saenz said she put her head down for a second, felt a whoosh of wind and saw her friends get hit,” said Detective Sgt. Thomas Groneman.
Devlin and Ortiz lay bloodied in the street as members of their department rushed to administer aid.
The two were admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip in critical condition.
Cops said motorists stopped at a nearby traffic light gave them a description of Lazinsky’s car and reported that she never slowed down.
Groneman said another witness alerted them to a damaged vehicle parked on a side street a few blocks away.
Two cops found Lazinsky talking nervously into her cellphone, seated in the Honda with major front-end damage and a smashed windshield.
Lazinsky was arraigned yesterday in Central Islip and pleaded not guilty. Over objections from prosecutors, she was offered $10,000 cash bail and $20,000 bond, which she was expected to post.
Her lawyer, David Besso, said that Lazinsky was an upstanding young woman from a solid family who simply made an error in judgment.
But those thoughts fell on deaf ears to the victims’ colleagues, friends and family.
“They are just two great, dedicated guys,” said West Islip Fire Chief Michael Delgado, holding vigil at their bedsides.
“They’re popular with everyone in the firehouse,” he added. “They are the future of our department.”