Driver hospitalized after Jeep flips into hotel lot, cops say

A Bay Shore man was hospitalized Thursday after police said he lost control of a Jeep on the LIE in Hauppauge, crashed through a chain-link fence, careened across a service road, and smashed through a second barrier before the SUV overturned in a hotel parking lot.

The driver, identified as Maleik Pessoa, 18, was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital where he underwent treatment for non-life-threatening injuries, Suffolk police said.

No one else was hurt.

Police said the crash occurred at about 8:38 a.m. as Pessoa attempted to change lanes on the eastbound LIE east of Exit 56.

He then lost control of the 2004 Jeep Cherokee, rocketed off the road and ended up in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express, police said.

Pessoa was briefly trapped and needed to be extricated from the Jeep, officials said. The service road, Express Drive South, was closed in the area for several hours for investigation.

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.”