When William G. Abel, M.D., finished examining the injured woman, he told Officer Finch, “We’ll have to take her to Southampton Hospital in the patrol car. We’ve had two other auto accidents tonight, and both ambulances are out. I don’t detect any broken bones, but she’s badly shaken up. Might be bleeding internally, probably has a concussion. I want to get her into X-ray right away. I can stabilize her head and neck.”
From his car trunk, Abel retrieved a plywood backboard and two small sandbags. Gently, he pushed the board under the victim’s head and shoulders, and laid the sandbags on either side of her head. He and Finch lifted her onto the patrol car’s backseat. The doctor leveled the backboard with his medical bag and slipped onto the seat beside his patient, holding her legs in his lap.
Finch took Fitz and Nita aside. “I’d be obliged if you’d wait until the coroner gets here,” he said. The couple assured him they would. “You’re important witnesses, and he’ll be wanting to take your particulars. A formal statement can wait until tomorrow.”
“Let’s get moving, but not too fast, I don’t want her jostled,” called out Abel. “Turn on the siren.” Finch did as instructed, and the car backed out onto Fireplace Road and turned toward Montauk Highway and the hospital, seventeen miles to the west.
It was a quarter past eleven when Dr. John Nugent, the Suffolk County coroner, arrived. By that time a substantial crowd had gathered, and the Fitzgeralds were eager to get their son to bed. TJ had returned just in time to see Finch’s car leaving—the Bennetts had kept him safely inside with milk and cookies while traffic around the crash site was at its worst. Nita had collected him with thanks, and now had him bundled in the backseat of the Fitzgerald family car, out of sight of the corpses.
An ambulance and two more police officers had also arrived. One directed traffic, while the other helped Nugent with his examinations. Both Pollock and the unidentified female passenger were pronounced dead at the scene, and the coroner ordered the bodies removed to the funeral parlor in East Hampton village.
“I understand you saw it happen,” said Nugent to Fitz, who explained that they’d been on their way back to the Sea Spray cottage when Pollock’s car had cut them off and swerved into the woods. “He was going pretty fast,” Fitz told him. “Looked to me like he lost control on that curve, where the concrete road ends and the blacktop begins.”
Nugent jotted down the funeral parlor’s address on the back of his card and handed it to Fitz. “You and the missus come to Yardley and Williams tomorrow morning, say around eleven. I can get all the details then. Sorry your boy had to see this. From what the neighbors tell me, Pollock was a menace. Too many like him on the roads out here.”
Nugent was familiar with the scenario, although this particular weekend would prove to be exceptional. He would soon examine eight more fatalities from the area, all of them involving drunk driving.