East Patchogue man, 64, killed in hit-run, police say

Suffolk police investigate the fatal hit-and-run on Main Street in East Patchogue that killed Warren Karstendick, 64, as he walked along Main Street just before 7 a.m. Sunday morning. Credit: Stringer News / Kevin Ryan
A brother of a pedestrian struck and killed in East Patchogue early Sunday morning by a hit-and-run driver said the victim was blind and not “supposed to be out on his own.”
Warren Karstendick, 64, of Bay Avenue in East Patchogue, was walking on Main Street just west of Phyllis Drive shortly before 7 a.m. when a sport utility vehicle traveling east struck him, according to Suffolk County police, who said the driver fled.
Karstendick was taken to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
The blue Ford Explorer, a model possibly from 2002 to 2005 and with noticeable front-end damage to the hood and grill — fled east on Main Street.
The victim’s brother, David Karstendick, said Warren Karstendick lived with him another brother.
“I’m very upset right now,” David Karstendick said.
A third brother, Mark, lives in Rocky Point and their sister, Nancy, lives in South Carolina.
“He was blind for the last several years of his life — he had cataracts — and he wasn’t supposed to be out on his own,” David Karstendick said.
“I just saw him last night. He got up and was doing laundry and when I got up he wasn’t there.”
David Karstendick said that although they lived under the same roof, Warren Karstendick was “very private.”
His death Sunday morning was another in a series of tragedies that have befallen the family, David Karstendick said.
“One of his children died at 18 of cancer, and we lost our mother last December.”
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