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A Centereach woman remains in critical condition with a severe traumatic brain injury nearly a month after a dump truck crash in Coram that killed her close friend and left a newborn in the NICU.
Laura Thiele, 37, is still hospitalized at Stony Brook University Hospital following the April 15 collision at the intersection of Patchogue-Mount Sinai Road and Pine Road, according to police and her husband, Kaven Campos.
“Laura is currently in critical condition with numerous broken bones and a severe traumatic brain injury,” Campos wrote on a crowd-funding page for Thiele. “Doctors have told us that even that she survived this nightmare, her road to recovery will be long, painful, and life-changing.”
‘Fighting for her future’
Campos said the crash upended his family’s life “in a matter of seconds.”
“In a matter of seconds, our entire world was shattered by a devastating car accident with a dump truck that nearly took my wife’s life,” he wrote. “The woman I love… is now lying in a hospital bed fighting for her future.”
Teen seriously injured in Miller Place wreck
Thiele was a passenger in a 2007 Toyota driven Tanya Fernandez, 39, of Coram when the vehicle collided with a northbound dump truck about 3:37 p.m., police said.
Fernandez was seven months pregnant. Surgeons via an emergency C-section safely delivered her premature newborn son, but Fernandez died after lingering in the hospital for weeks in a coma.
The mother of two boys was trying to turn left from southbound Patchogue-Mount Sinai Road onto Pine Road, near the Pine Ridge Golf Club, when the crash occurred, police said. The dump truck driver, a 35-year-old Centereach man, was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
A long road toward recovery
For Thiele’s family, Campos said the focus is now on survival and the long road of recovery ahead.
“We are facing enormous medical bills, long-term rehabilitation, and major renovations that will need to be made to our home so she can eventually return safely,” he wrote on a GoFundMe page for Thiele.
“From wheelchair accessibility to medical equipment and specialized care, everything about our lives is changing overnight,” Campos added.
Campos, who has a teenage daughter with Thiele, said donations will help cover emergency medical costs, intensive rehabilitation, long-term care, medical equipment and family support during Thiele’s recovery.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the fundraiser n five days had raised nearly $5,000 from 69 donations.
Top: courtesy of GoFundMe
Prior coverage
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