The husband of Great Neck school board President Barbara Berkowitz was hospitalized Saturday night after he crashed his car three feet from the westbound track of the Great Neck train station, Blank Slate Media has learned.
Barry Berkowitz apparently lost control of his vehicle around 9 p.m. and crashed through a fence, two barriers and a handrail, stopping on a metal staircase next to an enbankment near the tracks, according to Great Neck Vigilant Fire Department report.
Though unnamed in the report, Berkowitz was identified by his wife, who issued a letter to the editor published in this week’s Great Neck News thanking rescue workers who assisted him.
In the letter, Berkowitz said her husband had “suffered a medical incident which resulted in him driving though a fence, his car flying in the air, and landing mere inches from the third rail of the LIRR tracks, miraculously hurting no one and causing no major injury to himself, much to the amazement of police.”
He was sent to North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset for treatment of minor injuries and was not made available for comment.
“I told my husband he has an angel on his shoulder,” Barbara Berkowitz said in a phone interview Monday, adding police told her it was “nothing short of a miracle” Barry was not more severely injured.
MTA spokeswoman Meredith Daniels said the agency’s police is not investigating the incident.
The crash took place approximately 700 yards east of the train station and delayed train service for about 10 minutes, Great Neck Vigilant Chief Josh Forst said.
Barbara Berkowitz called the crash “a tragedy averted,” as her husband’s car avoided contact with low-hanging power lines and did not land on the tracks.
In her letter, Berkowitz wrote her husband “suffered a medical incident.”
The incident is the second near the Great Neck LIRR station in a month. Sima Hikimian, 62, of Great Neck fell in the gap between a westbound train and the platform on July 2. She suffered a collapsed lung and fractures to her ribs and clavicle.
At a meeting last Wednesday, Barbara said she thought Hikimian’s incident and Great Neck resident Stephanie Epstein’s rescue after a tree fell on her last Monday night were evidence that “somebody’s looking out for people in Great Neck.”
Her husband’s accident is further proof, she said.
“Everybody just shakes their head about it,” she said. “That’s their reaction — shaking their head in disbelief.”
