Driver of car that fell into Long Island Expressway sinkhole describes 'terrifying' experience

Driver Scott Manes called it "terrifying."

One minute, Manes said he was driving 55 mph in the right-hand lane of the westbound Long Island Expressway, headed for the ramp at Exit 49, Route 110, in Melville — a routine he'd done "a million-and-one times."

The next? A sinkhole opened in the road — and partially swallowed Manes' 2019 Honda.

It happened Thursday just before 2 p.m., and photos from the scene showed the Honda, its front end partially crushed, half-engulfed by the massive hole in the road. The sinkhole, which officials said measured about 10 feet wide and 8 feet long forced the immediate closure of the westbound LIE.

The New York State Department of Transportation said it closed two lanes overnight in the area for emergency repairs. By 9 a.m. Friday all the lanes reopened.

On Friday, Manes, 72, of Melville, said he was sore — but very thankful to be alive.

"I'm OK," Manes told Newsday in a phone interview. "At least, I think I am. But it was terrifying. I was driving about 55 miles per hour westbound on the LIE and the road looked normal. ... The next thing I know, I hear a bang, and the front of my car was in the sinkhole."

An auto finance representative for Valley Bank, Manes said he was returning home from meeting a client in Riverhead when the road suddenly swallowed him up.

"The air bag went off," Manes said. "My nose was bleeding a little bit. My torso was sore. They took me to the hospital, then sent me home."

Manes said: "My glasses were still on my face. But the lenses were gone."

In a statement Thursday, the DOT said nearby excavation may be responsible for the hole in the road.

"The sinkhole appears to have been caused by a contractor working under permit on a local municipal sewage project," NYSDOT said in the emailed statement.

According to NYSDOT, remediation work began Thursday evening and the right and center lanes of the westbound LIE remained closed until the repairs were completed.

Te Pei, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Stony Brook University, said Thursday that the sinkholes found in Nassau and Suffolk are generally caused by subsurface soil erosion due to aging infrastructure. Those would involve storm drainage, utility lines or other pipes that run beneath roadways and properties that begin to leak, allowing water "to erode the sandy road base from below," Pei said in an email to Newsday.

In recent years, several of these situations have occurred across Long Island, among them a water main break that collapsed the roadbed on Winona Road in Baldwin. Other water main breaks, many coming in wintertime due to freeze-thaw cycles, have collapsed other roads.

"This isn’t something that happens all the time, especially on Long Island," said James L. Neri, senior vice president and director of engineering at HRM, an engineering and architecture firm based in Melville. "And no one got hurt. I think that’s the takeaway."

Neri, an engineer who is not affiliated with the project that may have caused the sinkhole, said it’s likely some underground material either got displaced or shifted, causing a "void" beneath the roadway.

"My suspicion is that [the void] was probably there for some period of time and the road was acting like a bridge until it couldn’t hold up anymore," he said. 

Two cars ahead of Manes on Thursday was driver Jeffrey Jimenez, 55, of Coram. The construction worker said he was headed to his office in Melville to pick up payroll when his company car, a 2024 Chevrolet Trax, hit the emerging hole.

"It didn't look like a hole at first," Jimenez said. "It looked wet, like a wet spot in the road. At the last minute, I tried to swerve, but there was no way of avoiding it. My two front tires blew out. The rims are bent; the suspension got pushed back."

Jimenez said a tractor trailer was following him, just ahead of the car driven by Manes. "I tried to wave him off," Jimenez said, "but that truck hit it. I saw it shake, back and forth, and I don't know how, but he just kept on going. Then came that Honda."

Jimenez, a father of two and a new grandfather, is a Stage 3 esophageal cancer survivor. Diagnosed in February 2024, his weight dropped from 190 to 138 pounds. On Friday, he told Newsday he was just thankful to be alive.

"I'm blessed, " he said. "And, I'm grateful. I know they said that hole was 10 feet wide and 8 feet deep. I'm in construction. That hole was 10 feet wide, 8 feet long and maybe close to 25 feet deep. If that other car had gone in there, that man would be dead. All I know is it could've been worse. That could've been my daughter, it could've been my granddaughter. ... A sinkhole of that magnitude? It was life or death. Anything could've happened."

As he said: "In the matter of a second, everything could've changed. God was looking out for me, for us. This morning, I'm grateful for that." 

Newsday's Lisa Colangelo, Nicholas Grasso, John Asbury and Peter Gill contributed to this story.