A Long Island driver on prescription drugs fell asleep at the wheel early this morning, slamming his car into a tree and killing two teenage passengers who were flung from the vehicle.
Thomas Smith, 20, of Ridge, was being held pending arraignment on charges that he was driving his 2011 Honda Ridgeline while under the influence of drugs.
“He admitted to taking prescription drugs, he exhibited signs of impairment inconsistent with taking a normal doses,” Molloy said.
Smith told cops he fell asleep at the wheel while driving home from Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J..
The force of the crash “took off the whole side of the car, the whole passenger side,” said Sgt. Daniel Molloy of the Suffolk County Police Department. “It was such a bad wreck, we couldn’t tell if the seatbelts were ripped.”
Ryan Baumgartner, 17, of Rocky Point, and Smith’s girlfriend, Jackie Salvador, 19, were ejected from the car in the 1:24 a.m. crash.
Salvador’s brother Johnny, 17, was injured and taken to Stony Brook Hospital in stable condition.
Smith and a fifth passenger, a 16-year-old girl, who had fallen asleep on the long ride home from New Jersey and awoke to screams, were unhurt.