Thursday, October 1, 2026
Long Beach police are investigating an accident that occurred on East Park Avenue on Tuesday, in which an elderly woman was killed and three people were taken to local hospitals for serious injuries after a motorist lost control and collided into two vehicles heading eastbound just after 4 p.m.
According to City Manager Charles Theofan, four people were seriously injured — one fatally — in an accident involving a gray Honda occupied by a male driver and female passenger that lost control and careered into a van and a brown Ford at the intersection of East Park Avenue and Maple Boulevard.
“There was a van and two cars — and it appears that one of the cars somehow lost control and was going the wrong way on Park Avenue, and collided head-on into the van and another car involved,” he said.
Theofan said that two of the victims were taken to South Nassau Communities Hospital with serious injuries, while another victim was also taken to Long Beach Medical Center, but did not suffer life-threatening injuries. An elderly woman, a passenger in the Honda that jumped the median, was also transported to Long Beach Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 7 p.m., according to Long Beach Fire Department Chief Richard Corbett.
Corbett said that it is still unclear why the driver of the Honda lost control before he veered into oncoming traffic on the eastbound side of Park Avenue.
“The elderly driver of the silver Honda was reportedly driving erratically westbound on Lido Boulevard,” Corbett said. “Somehow, he lost control in the vicinity of Maple Boulevard, striking a support cable for a telephone pole, which made him veer into oncoming traffic and strike two cars.”
Corbett said it was unclear if the driver or the victim, who police identified on Wednesday as Ethel Bernstein, lived in Long Beach. Corbett and Theofan said that a Nassau County Police Department Emergency Services Unit vehicle happened to be near the scene when the accident occurred. About 25 Long Beach firefighters, along with Nassau County Police ESU, responded to the accident following reports of two people trapped in one of the vehicles. The Point Lookout-Lido Fire Department also responded, along with the Atlantic Beach and Island Park Fire Departments. ESU police and firefighters extricated the elderly woman and male driver from the vehicle, Theofan said.
“They used the Jaws of Life to pry open two of the vehicles to pry the people out,” Theofan said, adding that there was no indication that alcohol played a role in the accident.
Long Beach firefighters had just finished working an electrical fire on West Broadway shortly before the accident. Corbett said that after the driver hit the power cable, it triggered sporadic, minor power outages in the area as a result.
The eastbound lanes of East Park Avenue remained closed until 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Boulevard as Long Beach police conducted an investigation. The grey Honda was impounded for further investigation.
