Fundraising Campaign Started on Behalf of Bus Driver Involved in Fatal Greenport Crash

A local bus operator for Suffolk County Transit recently started a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe on behalf of Luis Garnica, a bus driver who was involved in a fatal accident in Greenport last month.

On Sept. 30, Brooklyn resident Jeremiah Grunblatt, 42, was killed after swerving and crashing into the S92 bus, driven by Garnica, 50, of Hampton Bays.

“Luis did everything possible to avoid the crash, and avoid contact with the other vehicle, but it was an impossible inevitability,” Jayson Siegel, who started the campaign, wrote on the page. “It is still unknown if he will be able to drive again, which has been his life’s passion and work for over 10 years.”

Grunblatt’s wife, Keturah Grunblatt, 39, who was a passenger in the car was treated for non-life threatening injuries and Garnica was hospitalized for a leg injury, police said.

Garnica has been in the hospital and has had numerous surgeries ever since the crash, according to Siegal.

“The mountain of medical bills, mortgage payments, home expenses, miscellaneous expenses and expenses for his children falls on his wife, and seems increasingly harder and harder to climb with each day that passes,” he wrote on the page.

Siegal started the page to help Garnica and his family pay for those expenses. The goal is to raise a total of $30,000.

Since the page was created on Sunday, Oct. 18, a total of $615 has been raised.

“Your donation helps me to help him reach his destination of getting better, and motivates me as well to continue to work each and every day to only try to continue my job even as half as well as he does,” Siegal wrote.

To read more or to donate, visit his GoFundMe page here.

Photo: gofundme.com