Teen hurt in fall from tree in Middle Island

A Yaphank teenager suffered a fractured vertebrae after he fell 40 feet out of a pine tree he had climbed at a county park in Middle Island Tuesday afternoon, a Suffolk County official said.

The 17-year old and his friend were at Prosser Pines, a nature preserve in Middle Island, when the accident happened about 4:30 p.m., said Deputy County Executive Jon Schneider. The friend called 911, which summoned county parks police, he said.

A helicopter landed at Longwood Middle School and took the teenager to Stony Brook University Medical Center, Schneider said.

Schneider said the teen was "alert." Forty feet is the height of a four-story building.

Prosser Pines, so called for the white pine trees there, is usually a place where people go to walk the trails and bird watch.

But the injured teen's friend told police they go to the parks to scale trees, Schneider said: "Apparently they liked to climb trees. This was not the first time they were climbing trees."