A 15-month-old girl who was not properly restrained in her car seat died in a single-car accident when the driver, her grandmother, lost control and the car flipped over several times in Farmingville, Suffolk police said.
The girl was ejected from the car, which rested on the grassy median of North Ocean Avenue, emergency responders said, and as she lay there Farmingville firefighters used the Jaws of Life to extricate her grandmother and the girl's mother from the front seat.
The child had head injuries and was declared dead at the scene, said a Sixth Squad Detective, one of the responders to the accident.
The driver and passenger, both of Mastic, were conscious and not seriously injured, police said. They were taken to Stony Brook University Medical Center.
The grandmother, mother and daughter were in a 2002 Mercury Mountaineer headed southbound on North Ocean Avenue, approaching Granny Road, when police said the accident happened. It was raining at the time. The toddler was in a car seat in the back seat. For hours, the crash closed North Ocean Avenue in both directions between Granny Road and Mooney Pond Road.
The stretch of North Ocean just north of Granny Road has been the scene of numerous accidents during times of heavy rain because of bad drainage, with vehicles hydroplaning and drivers losing control, said the second assistant chief of the Farmingville Fire Department, who was dispatched to the crash scene.
