Passersby tried to save man hit on LIE

A group of good Samaritans worked desperately to save the life of an Amityville college student as he lay mortally injured on a Long Island Expressway ramp after being struck by a car, one of the people who responded said Tuesday.

Aaron Thomas, 19, died Saturday evening after he and his girlfriend ran out of gas and parked their car in a safety zone between the expressway and the service road near Exit 52 in Commack, Suffolk County police said.

Thomas was walking back to the car with gas around 8 p.m. when he was hit by a 2006 Chevrolet on the expressway ramp, police said.

In his last moments, the group of strangers frantically worked on him.

"I want the family to know that this young man did not die without a fight," Eric Johnson, 39, a retired Suffolk police officer and nursing student, said Tuesday.

Johnson said he and his friend, an off-duty Southampton Town police officer who did not want to be named, were driving to an event Saturday night when they stopped to help Thomas.

An unidentified nurse and off-duty FDNY firefighter in a second car, Thomas' girlfriend and the woman who authorities said struck Thomas also administered first aid until police came, Johnson, of Manorville, said.

"Aaron's girlfriend was giving him rescue breaths, the nurse was giving him compressions, then I took over the compressions," Johnson said, adding that he lost all sense of time. "There was so much adrenaline. I remember just bits and pieces."

The team worked steadily despite the dangerous traffic that continued to zoom past them on the ramp, Johnson said. Police confirmed two cars stopped to help Thomas. He was pronounced dead later that night at Huntington Hospital, police said.

Kelly Hinlicky, 24, of Sayville, struck Thomas but is not expected to be charged in the accident, police said.

Johnson called Thomas' girlfriend, Renee Adams, "a hero. She was right there with us."

Adams, 19, a Farmingdale State University student, is in shock and is staying with the Thomas family in Amityville, Thomas' sister, Muffie Thomas, said.

"The family is really appreciative to anyone who stopped and helped," she said.

"He did not suffer," said Johnson, who attends Suffolk County Community College where Thomas was a freshman.

Said Muffie Thomas: "That's the one thing that we're all grateful for: He did not suffer."