Cops: Out-of-control truck and bus crash; 1 dead

An out-of-control tractor-trailer truck carrying gravel crashed into a minibus transporting special needs adults Wednesday afternoon in Baiting Hollow, killing one passenger on the bus and injuring eight others, police said.

A preliminary accident report by Riverhead Town Police said driver Robert Converse, Jr., 54, of Bellport, lost control of the 2006 Mack truck as he headed east on Sound Avenue near Baiting Hollow Hill and said that as the semi, loaded with gravel, began to overturn it struck the 2007 Ford minibus.

The truck came to rest on its driver's side and the bus sustained substantial damage, police said in a statement released early Thursday.

Police said all passengers on the minibus from the Maryhaven Center of Hope in Port Jefferson were injured.

The bus driver was identified as Gary Rosset, 61, of Ridge. The bus also was carrying a staff member and six special-needs adults, police said.

The identity of the victim has not been released, pending notification of next of kin.

The victim, identified only as a man, was pronounced dead at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, police said.

Police said the crash occurred at 3:08 p.m.

A spokeswoman for the medical center, Sharon Tietze, said five of the accident victims were taken there. The injuries and ages of the four others were not available.

Tietze said late Wednesday night that two of the four had been discharged, one was still a patient at Peconic and one had been transfered to Stony Brook University Medical Center for further treatment. The conditions of those victims was not known on Thursday.

A spokeswoman for John T. Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson, Nancy Uzo, said Wednesday night that four of the accident victims — all adults — were brought there for treatment. She said their injuries were not life-threatening and that all were expected to be treated and released.

A Suffolk County Police helicopter transported at least one of the accident victims, officials said. Riverhead Police closed Sound Avenue between Edwards and Fresh Pond avenues shortly after the crash.

Juanita Nash, of Riverhead, who works at a nursery on Sound Avenue, said Wednesday that cars and trucks often speed on the rural road.

"You have to take your time and go slow," she said.

Neither driver has been charged, police said.

Police said the crash remains under investigation.

With Bill Mason and Mitchell Freedman