Survivor of Fatal Route 58 Crash: 'I Keep Getting Flashbacks'

Riverhead resident Lawanda Clemons was on her way for an early birthday celebration at Saturday with her son and his friend when a car slammed head-on into her vehicle, killing the driver, who had fled the scene of two other minor accidents before the .

Back in her Northville home on Sunday, Clemons cried, her voice shaking, as she recalled the terror she experienced as she saw a car driving straight at her vehicle.

"I keep getting flashbacks," she said. When she saw Clemons' 1991 Saturn coming directly at her SUV, Clemons said, "I screamed. We all screamed. The whole scene felt like I was in a movie. I said, 'He's coming toward us,'" she recalled. "We couldn't even move -- and the next thing you know, he slammed into us."

Riverhead Town Police report that on Saturday at approximately 7:57 p.m., Julio Velez, 50, of Mastic was driving a 1991 Saturn eastbound on Route 58 when he apparently drove into the westbound lane, into oncoming traffic, for reasons still unknown, crashing head-on into Clemons' 2008 Suzuki Grand Vitara.

The accident took place just east of Oliver Street in the westbound lane and closed traffic on Route 58 for over four hours.

Police said Sunday evening that Velez was a licensed driver. 

Velez, who was extricated from his vehicle by personnel, was pronounced dead at the scene due to multiple injuries sustained in the crash.

An investigation revealed that Velez had been involved in two other, minor accidents west of the accident prior to the fatal crash and fled both before the final deadly collision.

Clemons and her two passengers, her son Devin Clemons, 20, of Riverhead and his friend, Paul Shorter, Jr., 21, of Middle Island were treated at the scene by members and were transported to with minor injuries.

"My whole body is swollen," Clemons said Sunday, adding that her son was also badly bruised and his friend, Shorter, was bleeding from a head laceration and needed ten stitches; he could possibly require cosmetic surgery.

"We crawled out of the car," she said. "The police officer said we were lucky we had an  SUV - if we weren't in an SUV we would have been dead. All of us would have been gone."

Headed to a birthday celebration -- both Clemons and her twin sister, Jawanda Bland, will turn 37 on Monday -- the trip was ill-fated. "We never made it there," Clemons said.

Devin Clemons said Velez came at his family's car with no headlights. "It was dark, and you could barely see the car. There was no time to swerve -- it was a done deal."

Bland rushed to the hospital after she got the call that her sister had been in a horrific car accident. Her sister, she said, had just passed the Kmart shopping center and was heading west when Velez crossed over into the lane and crashed into the vehicle, sending it careening into the guardrail. "The car is totaled," Bland said.

Police said on Sunday night they have not yet determined the cause of the crash and are waiting for results of a toxicology report to determine if alcohol played a role in the accident.