by Cris Italia
The passenger was Robert Pettit and after he was thrown off a 2000 BMW motorcycle at around 3:30 a.m. rescue workers found him lying inside a swampy area in Cedar Creek. Upon arriving to the scene, state troopers found the driver of the motorcycle, Nelson Potter of Oceanside on the side of the Wantagh Parkway, just three miles north of the Ocean Parkway and south of Merrick Road.
Potter, 50, had been allegedly driving while intoxicated and there were no other automobiles involved in the accident. He lost control on a curve and crashed into the underbrush, State Trooper Michael McCloud said of Potter. He had to be going pretty fast.
Potter lost control of his motorcycle driving southbound on approaching a curve when both he and Pettit were flung into Cedar Creek where there are currents that can get up to 50 feet high. Officers said that there have been cars that have sank after an accident. The current gets so rough that the water just pulls anything under.
Pettit was finally found after a half hour search. To find him rescue workers had to use portable infrared detectors. He was found critically injured with cuts all over his body and face. Eventually we would have found him, even without the infrared detectors, but by then who knows what kind of condition he might have been in, said Pat Crowe an ESU worker.
Both men were taken to Nassau University Medical Center, Potter was treated for a compound leg fracture and then arrested for DWI. He was arraigned for those charges at the First District Court last week. Pettit was admitted into the trauma unit, and eventually discharged two days later.
