A 65-year-old Brentwood man was arrested at his home Tuesday and charged with leaving the scene of a fatal crash after a pedestrian was struck and killed on Sunrise Highway in Lindenhurst before dawn. Suffolk County Police identified the suspect as Daniel Gomez and said he fled after striking 56-year-old Erik Ermanovics, an unhoused man who was crossing the highway in the dark.
According to Newsday, Ermanovics was crossing westbound Sunrise Highway at North Indiana Avenue around 4:25 a.m. when he was hit by a 2012 Honda Accord. He was rushed to Good Samaritan University Hospital in West Islip, where he died shortly after arrival. Gomez was scheduled to be held overnight at the Third Precinct ahead of arraignment in Central Islip First District Court, the paper reported. CBS News separately reported that a man had been arrested in a fatal hit-and-run on Long Island.
A Known Danger Zone on Sunrise Highway
The stretch of Sunrise Highway near Straight Path in Lindenhurst has a grim track record. The intersection recorded 17 serious-injury and fatal crashes between 2014 and 2023, including three deaths and 19 severe injuries, making it one of Long Island's deadliest crossings, per the same account from Parker Waichman LLP.
That danger isn't confined to one intersection. Suffolk County recorded 109 fatal traffic crashes resulting in 118 deaths in 2024, leading every county in the New York metropolitan region, according to Long Island Life & Politics. Motor vehicle crashes across Nassau and Suffolk counties caused 58 pedestrian deaths that same year.
Why Arterial Roads Like Sunrise Highway Are So Risky
Research cited in that earlier Hoodline report, drawing on analysis from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, found that arterial roads make up about 15 percent of lane miles and account for almost 60 percent of fatalities across the three-state region. Separately, a statewide crash analysis from the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research found pedestrians made up nearly a quarter of all traffic deaths in New York from 2016 to 2020, with people aged 55 and older representing half of those pedestrian fatalities — a demographic that includes Ermanovics.
The Charge Against Gomez
Gomez faces prosecution for leaving the scene of a fatal crash.
It is not the first Class D felony hit-and-run case tied to Lindenhurst. In December 2025, Hoodline reported that a Copiague man faced similar charges after striking a pedestrian on Montauk Highway; he went to a nearby friend's house, and police located and arrested him at a Lindenhurst motel two days after the crash.
Gomez was scheduled to be arraigned in Central Islip.
