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Fiery Motorcycle Wreck on Napeague

Thu, 07/16/2020 - 12:42
A motorcyclist walked away mostly unhurt after dodging a collision and falling from his Kawasaki, which hit a guardrail and burst into flames.
Doug Kuntz

In a fiery 2 a.m. crash more dramatic than harmful, Matthew Porcelli's motorcycle erupted in flames on Sunday as he was riding east on Montauk Highway near Surf Drive in Amagansett.

Mr. Porcelli, 21, of Commack, told East Hampton Town police he had swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid a collision, lost control, and fell off the 2020 Kawasaki, which collided with a guard rail and burst into flames. The young man got off easy, with road rash to his back but no broken bones. 

Amagansett firefighters extinguished the flames, and an Amagansett Fire Department ambulance took Mr. Porcelli to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital to be checked out. He was released after treatment. 

On the afternoon of July 6, at the Route 27 intersection with Wainscott Northwest Road, Sergio Arnold Lopez, 38, of West Haven, Conn., driving a 2004 Ford Pickup truck, rear-ended Robert Edlund's 2004 Dodge. Neither Mr. Edlund, of Mastic Beach, nor Mr. Lopez required medical attention, though both Mr. Edlund and his passenger, Justin Knaptik, complained of neck pain.

Mouhamadou Gaye of East Hampton, 21, told town police he had fallen asleep at the wheel on Friday morning before running off the road at the intersection of Accabonac Road and Collins Avenue, into some small trees. He was driving an Enterprise Rent-a-Car, which was badly damaged and was towed by V&V Auto.

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The shaving cream vandal struck again over the weekend, this time spraying the stuff around the interior and exterior of the men’s restroom in the Reutershan parking lot downtown Saturday night.

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A dog had been barking on and off in a fenced-in backyard for four days, a Springs-Fireplace Road neighbor reported on the night of Oct.15, adding that the house appeared to be empty and abandoned. Police went to the property and found a large black-and-white husky, “whimpering and shivering.”

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Felony Arrests, One Night After Another

Town police made two similar felony-level arrests for drunken driving last week, one on Main Street in Montauk and the other in East Hampton.

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