A Long Island cardiologist was charged with driving while intoxicated in connection with a crash that killed a 45-year-old hospital worker over the weekend, authorities say.
Police say Thomas Stavola, 54, was driving a 2013 Audi north on East Main Street shortly before 4 a.m. Saturday when he broadsided a 2009 Mercedes traveling west.
The woman driving the Mercedes, Monica Peterman, was on her way to work as a dialysis technician at St. Catherine of Siena Hospital in Smithtown just two miles away. She was taken to the same hospital after the crash, where she died.
Stavola, a board-certified cardiologist who has worked with Stony Brook Community Medical's North Suffolk Cardiology for nearly a decade, was taken to a hospital with minor injuries. He was later arrested.
"He's supposed to treat pain and problems, not kill solutions," said Peterman's son Bryan Greaves. "My mom was a solution."
For Peterman's two sons and her husband, the day after Father's Day was the continuation of a nightmare.
"Never in a million years did I think I'd be planning a funeral for my mother," said Justin Greaves, the victim's other son.
Peterman's coworkers at the hospital gathered at the crash site Monday to leave flowers and notes of love.
Justin Greaves said of his mother: "She helped everybody, and nobody helped her. And that's what hurts."
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Information on an attorney for Stavola wasn't immediately available, and no one answered the door at his Setauket home Monday.
"To walk away from that scene and leave a woman there and not, as far as we know, do anything to try to help her, that's pretty cold," husband Russell Peterman said.
"I don't know if the doctor understands what he did," he said. "He destroyed a family."
-- Greg Cergol contributed to this report
