Man accused of driving crane drunk along LIE; Officer leaps onto vehicle
HAUPPAUGE, Suffolk County (WABC) -- A crane driver is accused of driving drunk and crashing into several cars on Long Island, and a police officer jumped onto the moving vehicle to stop the carnage.
Police say 47-year-old Brian Sinclair was driving his crane along the Long Island Expressway in Suffolk County when he crashed into four cars in Hauppauge near Exit 57.
Investigators say he took off and drove erratically after police spotted him.
Highway Patrol Officer Joseph Goss waited for Sinclair to slow down, then jumped into the cab and ordered him to stop near Exit 63 in Farmingville.
"I thought he was going to crash and kill somebody," Goss said. "We've had a lot of bad accidents on the Long Island Expressway in the last couple weeks with the heavy summer traffic, so I was absolutely concerned. My primary goal was getting that car stopped and just keeping other motorists away from him, because if he made a slight contact, it would just shred their car apart."
Luckily, the officer and the other drivers suffered only minor injuries.
"I was able to use my service weapon to convince the driver to put the vehicle in park, which he did," Goss said.
Sinclair is facing charges of DWI and leaving the scene of an accident. He refused a Breathalyzer test at the scene, so his license was automatically suspended.
"He's obviously maintaining his innocence," attorney Christopher Gioe said. "We're going to use this opportunity to investigate these allegations further."
Amazingly, this isn't the first time that Officer Goss has jumped into a moving vehicle to save others.
In December of 2016, Goss jumped into a woman's car after she failed to pull over for a traffic stop and he spotted a 1-year-old child in the back of the vehicle. As the woman, allegedly on drugs, slowed to a crawl on the highway, Goss managed to reach inside the still-moving vehicle and shift it into park.
----------
