Cops: Fatal wrong-way driver had .30 BAC
An East Hampton man who was killed after crashing into another car while driving the wrong way on Sunrise Highway in Westhampton on New Year's Eve had a blood-alcohol content nearly four times the legal limit, State Police said.
Photos of the horrific crash showed both vehicles demolished and one, a Suzuki Grand Vitara carrying a family of three, laying on its roof.
Toxicology reports found that James Riley, 60, had a blood-alcohol content of .30 percent, state police spokesman Trooper Frank Bandiero said Thursday. The legal limit in New York is .08 percent.
Riley drove his 1996 Oldsmobile Cutlass eastbound in the westbound lanes of Sunrise and struck the 2000 Grand Vitara, a sport utility vehicle carrying the family, at 6:50 p.m. near Exit 63, police said.
Riley died in the crash.
Officials said the driver of the Suzuki, Carlos Bunay, 39, of East Hampton, was pinned in the overturned Grand Vitara and suffered lower body injuries.
His partner and their 9-year-old daughter also were injured, police said. Police said all three have since been released from the hospital. The extent of their injuries -- and prognosis for recoveries -- were not known.
