September 19, 2003 -- Hurricane Isabel's howling winds combined with cruel fate yesterday to leave a Long Island man seriously injured by a flying tree branch that impaled him when it smashed through the window of his SUV.
The 34-year-old man was driving in Great Neck Estates when the branch - 2 feet long and 4 inches thick - speared him in the stomach at 4:32 p.m. on Locust Drive, officials said.
Firefighters, struggling to save the man as an uninjured woman passenger looked on in horror, pried open the vehicle with specialized steel cutters, said Great Neck Estates Fire Chief Conrad Singer.
Miraculously, the man survived and was listed in guarded condition at North Shore University Hospital after surgery last night.
Singer said the injured man still had the tree branch embedded in his stomach when he was pulled from the Toyota 4-Runner.
"He was conscious . . . while we worked to get him out of there," the chief said.
Later yesterday, an off-duty Long Beach, L.I., police officer drowned while body-surfing. Detective Patrick Bradley, 42, a 15-year veteran of the department, is survived by his wife and daughter.
Late last night at least two windows on the Lehman Building at 745 Seventh Ave. in Midtown fell to the ground. No one was injured.
Parts of Seventh Avenue in the 50s were closed due to loosened windows in another building.
