A taxi driver was hospitalized Monday after his cab caught fire in a Roslyn Heights parking lot.
The Arena Taxi car caught fire in front of the shopping center on Willis Avenue at Stratford Street South around 9:37 a.m., Albertson Fire Department Chief Jason Lasek said.
Mechanical issues from overexertion in the snow probably started the fire, Lasek said.
The flames caused the driver, a Hispanic man, to have a medical emergency, and Nassau County police took him to an area hospital.
An Arena Taxi spokesman said the cab was heading back to the company’s base in Glen Cove.
Heavy piles of snow along Willis Avenue narrowed the thoroughfare and delayed the fire department’s first-responders in getting to the scene, Lasek said.
“It’s tough for the guys to get to the fire house, tough for them to get from the fire house to here, with people not moving on the roads,” he said. “One-lane traffic on a four-lane highway isn’t good.”
The spokesman said he had been in touch with the driver Monday morning and that the cab would be towed from the parking lot.
Albertson firefighters were on call from 9 a.m. Jan. 23, the day more than two feet of snow hit many parts of Nassau County, until noon on Jan. 24, Lasek said.
The department responded to three alarms, two medical emergencies, two fire calls and two vehicles stuck in the snow, he said.
Nassau County police reported four deaths during the weekend blizzard — three from medical problems related to snow removal and one man who was hit by a snow plow in front of his Oyster Bay Cove home Sunday afternoon.
Cops also responded to 233 car accidents, police officer Robert Graves said.
Some police vehicles got stuck in the snow, Graves said, but the storm didn’t prevent officers from responding to any incidents.
“That’s always something that winds up happening, but you just try to make do with the best you can,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t go down roads and (you’ve) got to then hoof it in.”
