Exclusive: Mother pleading for witnesses after teen injured in apparent hit-and-run in Wyandanch
According to Suffolk County police, the teen reported being hit on his way to school last Friday just after 8 a.m.
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Suffolk County police said it's probing an apparent hit-and-run that injured a 17-year-old who was riding an electric scooter on his way to school in Wyandanch last Friday.
According to police, the teen told officials he was struck by a car as he was crossing over the intersection of S. 18th Street and Garden City Avenue shortly after 8 a.m.
The victim's mother, Marie Yancey, claims the driver hit her son, Silas Burkes, 17, slowed down briefly, then darted off through a red light towards Straight Path.
"As a mom, I can't, you know, the first thing you think," she said. "He called me, 'baby, are you okay? Stay on the phone. Mom is on her way.' I'm coming."
Yancey spoke exclusively with News 12 in hopes that someone saw something that would help identify the car or driver that hit her son.
"I'm calling out to my community," Yancey said. "We've been here for 13 years. He's helped out people, he does stuff in this community. Can you help us?"
Yancey said Burkes had taken the same route to school for over a year and was not acting recklessly.
"He knows what the laws are, and I said, 'Make sure you stop at the stop sign,'" Yancey recalled. "He said, 'I did. I stopped at the stop sign. It was my turn to go.'"
Others in the neighborhood echoed similar concerns about how difficult and unpredictable the intersection can be.
"People kind of don't know what to do," Wyandanch resident Don Hylton said. "There's no other way to really go around and of course, people do rolling stops all the time, all day long."
"It's very frustrating because I live on the corner street and people just run through the stop sign," Wyandanch resident Vergia Hill said.
Suffolk County police said the teen was taken to Good Samaritan University Hospital in West Islip with minor injuries. Yancey said the teen returned to Wyandanch High School today but is still suffering pain from the incident.
Yancey is asking anyone who may have witnessed the incident to reach out to law enforcement.
Suffolk County police said the investigation is continuing.
