Driver of car that careened off CR 105 overpass late Saturday night ‘lucky to be alive’ thanks to off-duty paramedic

It was about midnight when Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps member and ex-chief Joseph Oliver and his wife were returning to their campsite at Indian Island County Park after the corps’ annual installation dinner.

“As I turned off 105, I saw this debris in the road on the exit ramp and I thought there’s no way that was still there from the accident the other day,” Oliver recalled in an interview yesterday.

If he hadn’t been looking for something, he said, he might not have even noticed the Camaro on its roof in some trees right near the park entrance.

“It was so dark and it was a black car, not lit, you couldn’t even see it there,” he said.

Oliver, a paramedic, sprung into action. He parked his vehicle and ran to the car, which was smoking. One person, a young woman passenger, was out of the car, but the driver was not. Oliver called for the fire department and pulled the man from the wreck, fearful that it might go up in flames.

“I grabbed him and pulled him out and brought him to the other side of the roadway for safety,” Oliver said.

The man was bleeding profusely from his forehead. Oliver ran back to his SUV, told his wife to call the police, grabbed his bag and went back to his patient.

“I did everything I could to stop the bleeding. It was heavy,” he recalled. Since police were not yet on scene, he radioed the county to ask for aviation to transport the patient to Stony Brook. He also called the fire department and Riverhead PD, where a dispatcher told him police and ambulance units were on the way.

RVAC paramedic Ray Bonner and Police Officer Charles Chicanowicz arrived and Oliver turned his patient over.

Nick Soullas, 37, of Jamesport is recovering at Stony Brook University Hospital, where he was listed in fair condition yesterday. In addition to his head injury, he has broken bones and may require surgery. His female passenger was treated and released at Southampton Hospital.

“Something jumped out in front of me,” Soullas said in a phone interview this afternoon. He was northbound on County Road 105 approaching the bridge over Indian Point Road, the county park’s entrance and he swerved to avoid whatever it was in the road.

What happened next is fuzzy, he said. He remembers his 2010 Camaro flipping over the guard rail and going over the bridge. Oliver found the car on its roof, front end pointing southwest, in a small stand of trees on the east side of the northbound CR 105 exit ramp for Indian Island County Park, just south of the park entrance.

Riverhead Police had no official statement on the crash yesterday, said Lt. David Lessard. There was no record of the MVA at all in the police press report made available to the media. In a phone interview, Lessard confirmed that it happened and the vehicle had two occupants, a male driver and female passenger and that the male was airlifted to Stony Brook and the female taken to Southampton. Speed was a factor in the crash but police had not issued any summonses in the crash, which remains under investigation, he said. It was the third high-speed overturn crash on the divided highway this month.

At the crash site yesterday, Oliver and Bonner tried to figure out how the car was positioned where it was. There was no sign of any damage to the trees on the west side of the ramp, along the highway, which rises up at that point for the Indian Point Road overpass. The tree tops are just about even with the guard rail on the elevated roadway, Bonner pointed out. The first sign of the car’s impact is on the opposite side of the ramp’s pavement, where it spilled fluids and sprayed shattered safety glass. There are signs of scraping on the eastern edge of the pavement and the dirt. And a tree with a chewed up trunk that was pushed over, its root ball emerging slightly from the ground. A tattered piece of plastic yellow police tape was tied to the tree.

The car was tucked in there, on its roof, pointing southwest when Oliver and his wife happened upon the wreck, he said.

Soullas at some point had smacked his forehead hard on something, opening a deep six-inch gash. It was pouring blood. He is unsure whether or not he lost consciousness.

Riverhead being a small town, Soullas actually knew his rescuer. Oliver has a computer service company and he worked on the network at the heating and air-conditioning company Soullas owns.

“It was comforting it was someone I know,” he said. “I asked him to call my father and let him know what was going on.”

Soullas was very lucky, Oliver said. “I’m pretty sure nobody’s going into Indian Island at midnight. It wasn’t visible from 105. The way he was bleeding we’d have a completely different story today with a completely different outcome.”

“I’m lucky to be alive and so grateful,” Soullas said. “He saved my life.”