What Happened
A five-vehicle crash on the eastbound Southern State Parkway at Exit 17 in Malverne overturned one car and trapped a person inside Thursday night, according to News 12 Long Island. Two people suffered serious injuries. Both were taken to nearby hospitals.
Volunteers from the Lakeview Fire Department responded to the collision at the Exit 17 interchange, where the parkway meets Hempstead Avenue. Arriving crews found one vehicle on its side with an occupant trapped inside, fire officials told News 12 Long Island. The report did not specify what type of vehicles were involved or what triggered the multi-car chain reaction.
Lakeview EMS and Northwell EMS each transported one of the two seriously injured patients to area hospitals, per fire officials. The exact time of the crash and the names and ages of those hurt had not been released by the time News 12 filed its report at 5:06 a.m. Friday, September 4, 2026.
All eastbound lanes of the Southern State Parkway near Exit 17 closed for more than two hours. News 12 Long Island reported it reached out to New York State Police for additional details and had not received a response by the time of publication.
Location & Road Context
Exit 17 puts drivers onto Hempstead Avenue in Malverne, a village in southwestern Nassau County where the Southern State Parkway passes through a densely developed residential corridor. The eastbound lanes at this interchange carry heavy overnight volume from travelers returning from Jones Beach and other south shore destinations on summer weekends.
The Southern State Parkway has logged 59 incidents in the past 30 days and 219 incidents so far in 2026, according to Long Island Traffic’s incident registry. Three separate crashes on the same corridor were recorded on September 3 alone, the day before this collision. The most recent prior fatal crash on this corridor occurred August 7, 2026.
Broader Impact
The more-than-two-hour closure of all eastbound lanes near Exit 17 fell during overnight hours on a summer Thursday-into-Friday, a period when late-night beach and bar traffic concentrates on the parkway. Eastbound drivers approaching Malverne had no lane access past the Exit 17 ramp for that stretch. New York State Police had not confirmed a cause of the crash as of the 5:06 a.m. filing.