Passenger injured when handicapped accessible minivan stops suddenly, police say

A Bohemia woman was hospitalized in serious condition Thursday after striking her head on the dashboard when the handicapped accessible minivan she was riding in suddenly stopped, Suffolk County police said.

The woman was seated in the back of the 2020 Toyota Sienna minivan “with no front passenger seat or center console” when the driver, heading east on Veterans Memorial Highway in Hauppauge, “stopped the vehicle suddenly,” Suffolk police said in a news release. The maneuver sent the passenger, who was not restrained, lunging forward. Her head hit the dashboard, “rendering her unconscious,” police said.

In an effort to pull the minivan over, the driver turned right onto Raoul Wallenberg Drive around 3:35 p.m., but struck a 2008 Honda Accord, police said. After stopping their respective vehicles, both drivers performed CPR on the unconscious minivan passenger “until first responders arrived and restored her pulse,” the release said.

The woman whose head hit the dashboard was transported to Stony Brook University Hospital in serious condition, police said.

The minivan passenger, 72, and the driver, 75, are sisters-in-law, a Suffolk police spokesperson told Newsday.

The drivers of both the Toyota and the Honda were uninjured, police said. Police impounded the two vehicles for safety checks.