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Eddie Downes from the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance was first on the scene of the crash. KITTY MERRILL Eddie Downes
Eddie Downes was running late — and for a motorist seriously injured in a crash on Noyac Road on the morning of Wednesday, April 27, that tardiness may have been a lifesaver.
A member of Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance since 1987 and a Sag Harbor firefighter for 40 years, Downes said, “I was just happy to be in the right place at the right time.”
He was heading down Noyac Road on his way to work in Riverhead, where he’s a mechanic at Mattituck Laundry, when he chanced upon a dramatic tableau.
It was still dark and traffic was still light at 5 a.m. Downes had made it just before the bridge near Fish Cove Road when he noticed a Jeep pulled to the side of the road. “Then I see another car on its roof,” he said.
A short distance from the car, a 2017 Mercedes-Benz, lay the driver, in the middle of Noyac Road, bleeding profusely.
Seeing that the man in the Jeep was calling 911, Downes grabbed his EMT kit out of his car and rushed to the victim, identified by Southampton Town Police as 40-year-old Louis Napolitano of Center Moriches.
“He was in the middle of the road, behind the car. I’m not sure how it happened — he got ejected,” Downes said. “He was in pretty bad shape.”
Federal privacy laws prevent responders from offering specific details of victims, but police noted both of the victim’s legs were injured and bleeding.
“I had a tourniquet in my kit, so I applied that,” Downes said. Another responder arrived on the scene, from Southampton Volunteer Ambulance. “He grabbed a belt and used it as a tourniquet on the other leg,” he continued.
A woman came upon the scene and brought a blanket to cover the injured driver. “She was talking to him, trying to keep him calm,” Downes said. The pair of responders were working to see if he had any other injuries.
A paramedic arrived and had another tourniquet, and Downes replaced the belt with that. She called Suffolk County Aviation for a medevac helicopter to transport the victim to the trauma center at Stony Brook University Hospital and started an IV for fluid replacement.
“Then the ambulance showed up, and we got him on a backboard and into the ambulance. And they drove down to the ball field and flew him out,” Downes related.
The volunteer noted that the patient was conscious and talking to first responders before he went into the ambulance. The medevac landed on the ball field near the North Sea Firehouse.
Southampton Town patrol officers and North Sea Fire Department were also on the scene.
Noyac Road near Fish Cove Road in North Sea was closed for three hours.
“It’s strange how things happen,” said Downes, who’s served as chief of both the fire department and ambulance over the course of his volunteer tenure. “You could be a little bit late, and you’re able to help somebody. Who knows? Would I have been already past there if I was on time? Or would I have been involved in the accident?”
