HORROR: The demolished SUV of Carissa Castillo after her SUV drifted into the path of the oncoming bus. (Doug Kuntz)
Carissa Castillo
TRAGIC: Country Road 39A is shut down yesterday after a nurses aide’s SUV struck this Hampton Jitney, killing the 28-year-old mother of two. (
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A hardworking mother of two was killed yesterday morning when her SUV swerved into the opposite lane and slammed head-on into a Hampton Jitney bus in Southampton, authorities said.
The grisly 7 a.m. crash also injured the driver and an attendant on the Hampton Jitney Ambassador, a luxury bus the company operates that was not carrying passengers at the time, law-enforcement sources said.
The sources said Carissa Castillo, 28, of Shirley, was heading east on Country Road 39A on her way to work as a nurses’ aide at a health care facility in Southampton when she was somehow distracted and crossed into the westbound lane.
The bus driver slammed on the brakes leaving heavy skid marks on the roadway, but could not stop in time, and collided with Castillo’s Chevy SUV near St. Andrews Road.
The front of the victim’s maroon SUV was obliterated in the collision, and the wreckage littered the roadway.
Castillo was pronounced dead at the scene, while the bus driver and attendant were taken to Southampton Hospital with non-life- threatening injuries.
Sadly, Jamel Armstrong, the father of Castillo’s two children, Janiah Chanel, 4, and Jamel Jr., 8, had tried to talk her into staying home yesterday because his mother was visiting the family.
But she insisted on working, a distraught friend, Sharon Bremner, said from Castillo’s modest, two-story home on Revilo Avenue.
“It’s very sad. She struggled to keep a home for her kids. She’s a hardworking mom,” Bremner said.
Shaunae Cousin, 28, the victim’s best friend and cousin, said Castillo was also a caring daughter who tended to her elderly mother.
“She brightened up the room. She was definitely a lover not a fighter,“ Cousin added.
Police would not disclose what caused the distraction and released few details on the crash.
The wreck closed County Road 39A for more than eight hours, and caused massive backups on Montauk Highway and nearby secondary roads.
County Road 39A was not completely reopened until about 3:30 p.m.
Hampton Jitney officials did not return calls for comment. But company Vice President Andrew Lynch told the local Web site 27east that no passengers were on board at the time of the crash.
The popular service offers transportation from Manhattan to both the North and South forks of Long Island.