COP RUNS OVER SUNBATHER IN ACCIDENT ON LONG ISLAND BEACH

From: New York attorney Gary E. Rosenberg (personal injury and accident attorney and lawyer; serving Brooklyn Queens Bronx; Brooklyn Accident Lawyer)

Thursday May 26, 2010, Marshall Starkman, age 43, was sunbathing in a lounge chair on the beach at Long Beach, Long Island when a cop responding to a call of a surfer in trouble ran him over, pushing Starkman and his chair deep into the sand. According to officials, DeMarco was responding to a call for a water rescue shortly after noon and made a sharp right turn, rolling over Starkman, who was lying face down in a lounge chair.

According to witnesses, Starkman, a manager at a cell phone store in the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, Long Island, had been lounging near a cooler listening to music when the SUV crushed him, witnesses said.

In this awful accident, Long Beach Officer Paul DeMarco, a 10-year veteran driving a Dodge Durango, left tire marks on Starkman's back.

The accident victim's chair was low in the sand and might have been obstructed from the officer's view.

Starkman was rushed by helicopter to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow and was in the intensive-care unit last night for his injuries from this accident - a fractured cervical spine (neck) and rib fractures - but is expected to survive, officials said.

DeMarco is not expected to face any charges for what, in the final analysis, seems to just have been a tragic accident.