Police: DWI arrest after Freeport crash seriously injures passenger

A Miller Place woman drove drunk and crashed her SUV into a utility pole Sunday evening in Freeport, leaving a passenger with a severe head injury, police said.

Jessica Coleman, 22, of Cedar Drive, was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated and second-degree vehicular assault. She suffered minor abrasions in the crash, Nassau County police said.

Coleman is scheduled for arraignment Monday in First District Court in Hempstead.

Police said Coleman was driving a 2005 Jeep Liberty eastbound on East Merrick Road when she “drove off the roadway” and hit the pole just west of the Meadowbrook Parkway at about 8:50 p.m.

The passenger, identified only as a 22-year-old woman, was “unrestrained in the rear seat” of the Jeep — and “was thrown into the rear cargo area,” striking her head.

Additional details were not immediately available.

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”