1. An Accident's Aftermath
Landscaper loses both legs below the knee
By Alex McNear
The Springs man who was struck by a Jeep last week on Gould
Street in East Hampton suffered such severe injuries to his legs that
doctors at Stony Brook University Medical Center were forced to
amputate both of them below the knee.
Mario Rivas, 28, was standing next to a landscaping trailer on Sept.
16 when the accident happened. He was airlifted to Stony Brook,
and the surgery was performed as soon as he arrived. He remains at
the hospital this week.
A girl's pink bicycle and a small red toy car filled with rainwater
were on the front steps of Mr. Rivas's Glade Road house the next
morning. Yady Figueroa answered the door. Mr. Rivas, his brother
Federico, Federico's wife, and Ms. Figueroa and her husband and
two children all live together in the pale yellow two-story house.
Ms. Figueroa cried quietly as she spoke about Mr. Rivas, whom she
described as one of her closest friends. She had spoken to him at the
hospital that morning and said he was in a state of shock. He
wondered how he would now support himself, she said.
From his hospital bed yesterday, Mr. Rivas said he was in a lot of
pain because of follow-up surgery on Tuesday. "Little by little I am
getting better," he said, his voice almost at a whisper.
Mr. Rivas will not be home for some time. Tuesday's surgery, which
was successful, will enable him to be fitted with prosthetic limbs, but
he will have to spend a long time in a rehabilitation facility after he

2. leaves the hospital. He said, however, that he had every intention of
returning to work. "The first thing I'll do when I get out is work
and study English," Mr. Rivas said, though he was uncertain just
what work he would do.
Large pots filled with plastic flowers and colorful oil paintings
decorate the living room of the Glade Road house. A photograph of
the Statue of Liberty, mounted on a mirror frame, hangs on the wall
above an upright piano. Ms. Figueroa said Mr. Rivas had come to
this country from Mexico in 1998 for an operation to correct a facial
malformation. He stayed on in America and for several years has
worked for Felix Palacios, another Glade Road resident, who owns a
landscaping company.
Ms. Figueroa and Mr. Rivas were to attend an English class together
at the Riverhead campus of Suffolk Community College on the
afternoon of the accident. He was to call her at 3 p.m. She waited
and waited.
Mr. Rivas and another Palacios Landscaping employee had just
finished cutting a lawn on Gould Street at around 2:30 p.m. Mr.
Rivas was standing in the road next to the trailer when Elliott
Williams, 19, a senior at East Hampton High School, driving south
down Gould Street, hit him. The landscaper was crushed against the
trailer, which was dented and had a flat tire. The Jeep's passenger-
side door was sheared off in the accident.
It was reported here last week that East Hampton Town police said
Mr. Williams had been driving at an "unsafe speed," but that was
incorrect, according to Chief Todd Sarris. The police report actually
stated that "pedestrian error/confusion" was a "contributing
factor" to the accident, said the chief, but that too, he said on
Friday, was wrong. A new accident report was issued Monday
morning, stating that "driver inattention" was a contributing factor.
Gould Street, a residential street with no sidewalks, has become over
the years a shortcut for drivers traveling from Cedar Street to
Newtown and Long Lanes. Residents said it was also used by
students on their way to the high school.
Stephen Zigler, who has lived on the block for 15 years, called it "an

3. accident waiting to happen." With landscaping trucks and parked
cars taking up part of the road, the narrow street is "intrinsically
dangerous," he said.
Catherine Bodziner is afraid to let her daughter walk the few blocks
to the East Hampton middle school on Newtown Lane because, she
said, high school students speed down the street in the morning and
in the afternoon when school is out.
"I would love to have the police set up radar on this street. They
could even use my driveway," Donald Ferrara said. "People do not
adhere to 30 miles an hour."
Scott Sarina, the East Hampton High School principal, said, "We as
a school feel terrible. It was a tragic accident." He said he had never
heard complaints about students speeding on Gould Street.
East Hampton Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen, however, said
speeding on Gould has indeed been a problem. In fact, he said, on
the morning of the accident village police charged a student with
speeding there. The part of the street nearest to Newtown Lane is
under Chief Larsen's jurisdiction; the rest of it is patrolled by town
police.
The driver of the Jeep, Mr. Williams, a resident of Springs-
Fireplace Road, East Hampton, and a star halfback on the varsity
football team, did not return telephone calls. He was treated at
Southampton Hospital for facial injuries following the accident and
released the same day.
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