Driver flees after hitting man in East Islip driveway, police say

Hours after a hit-and-run driver struck him in his East Islip driveway, Jorge Gomez-Botero looked at his injuries — the stitches on his left arm and hand, the sling on his right shoulder, the cuts on his leg and head — and asked a single question.

“Who hits somebody and leaves them?” asked the 36-year-old sales rep for a food distributor Wednesday. “What if I was dying? What if my family wasn’t home?”

Gomez-Botero, who lives on Union Boulevard, had just climbed out of his Nissan Juke shortly after midnight Wednesday when a car heading eastbound on the two-lane roadway, skidded into his driveway, striking him and his vehicle, Suffolk County police said. The driver then pulled away, police said.

“I was just getting out of the car and I saw the lights and heard the squeal of tires,” Gomez-Botero said. “Then I was in the air.”

The 6-foot-1-inch, 225-pound man said the impact sent him flying more than 10 feet. He lay on the ground in his front yard, cold and scared, as he dialed 911. Then a relative emerged from the house to help.

Gomez-Botero doesn’t believe the collision was intentional, but an accident that became something far worse when the driver fled the scene, he said.

“It’s pretty heartbreaking that a human being can be capable of doing something like that, that they have no respect for human life,” he said.

He urged the person to surrender.

Police are searching for the driver, who Gomez-Botero said stopped for a few seconds before speeding away. Investigators have some clues, police said.

The crash ripped off a piece of the driver’s front grill, with the Nissan logo still on it, as well as a silver side mirror. Consequently, police said, they believe the person was driving a Nissan Altima.

The hours before the collision had been utterly mundane, Gomez-Botero said. He had been running errands such as going to the bank before he pulled up to his home, parking in his driveway, parallel to the street.

The other car was going “really fast,” Gomez-Botero said, noting that it swerved from the far eastbound lane, crossed an opposite lane of traffic, and flattened a metal sign that read, “No Parking Any Time.” The car bounded over a snowbank before sideswiping the front of Gomez-Botero’s gray vehicle and striking his body on the left side..

“He must have lost control,” Gomez-Botero said.

Union Boulevard in that area, between Fern and Champlin avenues, has one lane in each direction. The roadway is a popular east-west artery with a posted speed limit of 35 mph.

Gomez-Botero recounted the hit-and-run from his living room, his wife and family beside him. His left hand and arm, which received a total of 29 stitches, are wrapped in bandages. His other arm hangs in a blue sling.

Police are hoping that a nearby surveillance camera captured the accident. Detectives asked anyone with information on the hit-and-run crash to call Crime Stoppers at 800-220-8477.

Gomez-Botero is walking with a limp and can’t drive or make it up or down stairs. He expects he will miss a week or two of work.

But that’s not what bothers him the most.

“What bothers me the most is who does this,” he said.

With William Murphy

CORRECTION: The time and day of the accident were incorrect in a previous version of this story, due to inaccurate information provided by police.