Wheatley Heights crash kills man, injures another, police say

A Wyandanch man was killed, another man injured, in a head-on crash Friday morning on Straight Path in Wheatley Heights, Suffolk County police said.

Deronne Lawrence, 19, was driving his 2008 Honda north on Straight Path, about 90 feet north of Half Hollow Road, when he veered into the southbound lane and struck a 2013 Jeep at 6:45 a.m., police said in a statement.

Paul Gimelli, 31, of Dix Hills, who was driving the Jeep, was “in serious condition” at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip, police said.

The Honda and the Jeep will undergo safety checks.

Photos from the scene showed a sport utility vehicle, its hood crumpled, and a mangled car, its front end crushed.

Debris, as well as a lone soccer ball, lay in the road.

Both vehicles were off to one side of the roadway — the SUV across a sidewalk, its front-end into a wooded area; the car stopped just before the roadside curb.

Anyone with information about the crash should call police at 631-854-8152.

With John Valenti