News: Possible Body Found at Gilgo Beach

(Long Island, N.Y.) Authorities discovered what could be a fifth victim of the Gilgo Beach/Craigslist serial killer. The remains recovered last night are believed to be human but need to be analyzed by examiners for more definitive results. Human remains were found belonging to four different women last winter in the same vicinity.

Police had postponed their investigation of the Gilgo Beach area due to the harsh winter weather conditions and frozen grounds, but had announced they’d resume the search for more human remains in the spring. Their investigation also included Oak Beach, which is about three miles from Gilgo.

The twenty-four-year-old missing woman from New Jersey who sparked their search, Shannon Gilbert, was not found among the four remains, but sources say that the remains will be tested to see if she is now among the victims. Gilbert, like the four women found in the area, had been visiting a client after advertising services on Craigslist; all of the women slain were in their twenties. Gilbert has been missing since May.

Cadaver dogs were used to assist police in yesterday’s search. So far, no suspects have been named by authorities. Some reports claimed that police intended to search a laptop belonging to the boyfriend of one of the girls. Police believe that he is one of the last people to see her alive and may have even contacted the killer to arrange the meeting off Craigslist.

Tuesday’s discovery was found after a search that spanned the entire day in a location that was east of the original findings. In addition to cadaver dogs, helicopters were used to locate any suspicious areas from an aerial view. Some sources have stated that in the current state of the investigation, there is no evidence supporting the theory that Tuesday’s remains have any connection to Gilbert.

The remains found yesterday were located about a half-mile away from the initial discoveries. The last time Gilbert was seen alive was May 1st, 2010 in the same area of the findings. The four bodies of the girls were identified this past January. Due to the findings, authorities have stated that Ocean Parkway will be closed at least up until Wednesday morning.

Some reports claim that at least three canine units comprising of cadaver dogs and Suffolk County Police Officers were used in yesterday’s search. During the investigation, a mobile command post was set up by authorities in a nearby parking lot as the police helicopter patrolled the air. Police have estimated that the bodies have all been dumped at Gilgo Beach over a period of at least eighteen months.

Sources have stated that police efforts towards finding Gilbert are tireless and that authorities are exhausting everything available to them in their search for more remains. Likewise, they are relentlessly following all leads and linking information to help track down the killer. In previous statements, police officials have claimed that the girls’ professions will have no bearing on their commitment to tracking down their killer and solving their case.

News: Recent Robberies on Long Island

(Long Island, N.Y.) A forty-two-year-old man from South Floral Park was arrested Sunday for robbing a bagel store where he was formerly employed. This is the third time the man stole from the same place within the month of March. He was charged with three counts of third-degree robbery and is believed to have been prompted to steal to support a drug habit.

The bagel store called “My Three Sons Bagels” is located on Covert Avenue in Stewart Manor. Detectives from the Third Squad responded to calls of the break-ins. The robber’s arraignment was held on Monday at the First District Court in Hempstead.

The first incident occurred on March 15th at roughly ten in the evening, and the second occurred less than ten days later on March 24th at roughly eleven-thirty. Both times the burglar entered by prying open the rear basement window of the bagel shop. The third and final incident occurred hours after the second at one-thirty in the morning on March 25th. In that incident, he entered through the back door of the building.

In another story, four teenagers were charged for robbing a pedestrian and a gas station employee at gunpoint on Sunday night. The incidents occurred in Huntington and Huntington Station, and the teens were arrested shortly after the robberies. Patrol officers had spotted a getaway car in Greenlawn, and were quick to accost the teenaged muggers.

In a separate incident of robbery, a sixteen-year-old high school student was beaten and robbed Monday night on his way walking home from Valley Stream High School. The incident occurred at roughly seven-thirty at night on the corner of Central Avenue and West Jamaica Avenue.

In this case, the robber hit the teen behind the jaw and wrestled him to the ground. The teen’s cash and cell phone were stolen before the robber ran from the area. Police detectives from the Fifth Squad were called to the scene and are currently undertaking an investigation to capture the teen’s mugger.

Another story of robbery involved an unidentified man who stole $450 worth of items from a CVS in the Port Plaza shopping center in Port Jefferson. Among the stolen items were medicine and dental products. Sixth Precinct police detectives responded to the call.

The thief in this case stole thirteen bottles of Tylenol cold medicine worth an estimated four hundred dollars. He also stole three boxes of Colgate teeth whitener valued at fifty dollars. Authorities suspect that the stolen items may be used to make illegal drugs, and stated that cold medicine is often used to make crystal meth. Another possibility is that the thief intended to resell the items to stores willing to restock and re-sticker the products.

The same CVS was robbed about two months before this week’s incident, and over a thousand dollars worth of merchandise was stolen by a different robber. Police say that they have a photo taken from a security camera of the man responsible for the recent robbery. They are offering a $500 reward to anyone with information leading to an arrest and have instructed the public to anonymously call Suffolk County Crime Stoppers.

News: Tax Issues on Long Island

(Long Island, N.Y.) While Nassau County faces a variety of financial issues, one that has many Long Islanders holding their wallets tighter is that of property taxes. The current county executive, Edward Mangano, inherited the task of having to reform the old policy of property tax assessments. Steps have been taken to help keep one of America’s richest counties out of the financial hole.

The county issued an eight week window for Nassau County homeowners to challenge their property tax assessments. During that time, Nassau County officials have brainstormed to deal with what’s known as the broken assessment system. In place long before Mangano’s administration, the system compensates homeowners for faults in assessments, including the hefty share awarded to school taxes.

It’s been estimated that the county spends $250 million a year under this broken assessment system, contributing to the county’s $1.6 billion dollar debt. While county officials have been battling the legality of turning authority over to NIFA (Nassau Interim Finance Authority), a state-watchdog agency, many residents are in outrage over lapses in the system. Some residents have stated that they have received late letters from the county detailing their assessed property values. Some were left with less than two weeks to challenge the assessments before the close of the eight week deadline.

Not surprisingly, some residents claim that this has hindered their ability to challenge assessments. While the information for property tax assessments is available on the Internet, many don’t know to look there and insist on waiting for the assessments via mail. Some residents claim that though their annual assessments have lowered, their taxes have increased in the following year. Others claim that their taxes have increased solely in response to reductions granted to their neighbors.

Many things can lead to higher property taxes including court orders, exemptions, and shifts in value. Some residents accuse the county of using transparency to prevent residents from challenging their assessments. Of those who have challenged assessments, some claim that the county has made it nearly impossible to collect what has been granted to them.

Nassau County residents who have challenged property assessments complain of the steep lawyer fees that go along with the process, saying that up to fifty percent of their judgment could be lost to fees. Some claim that they are still waiting for money that was awarded to them last year. Others say they are forced to challenge their assessments every year because the lapse in estimated value, which led to what they were awarded, hasn’t been reflected in their paperwork.

Mangano has proposed a variety of reforms for the property tax issue, and has been claiming all along that Nassau County officials are more than capable of managing county finances without the interference of NIFA. To help keep Nassau out of the hole, he suggests freezing property tax assessments for a period of four years and phasing out the borrowing used to pay the $100 million in tax refunds each year. Tax refund expenses have been a main factor in bringing the county to near bankruptcy.

Residents of Nassau County claim they can’t afford their property taxes and have sold their homes as a result of their continual rate increase. A resident of Roslyn Estates, whose home was assessed at $1.2 million, has stated that he hasn’t been able to sell his home for $800,000. Not surprisingly, he claims that he also can’t afford the $26,000 in taxes each year. He is one of many Nassau County residents that have stated that their property taxes are not a true reflection of their homes’ value.

New York State has some of the highest property taxes in the country. It’s estimated that one in three Long Island homeowners are overtaxed. Last year sixty thousand Nassau County residents challenged their tax assessments. Some still say the real issue supplementing the county’s financial woes is the union workers who would rather take from the county then make concessions.

News: DJ Megatron Slain in New York City

(Long Island, N.Y.) A thirty-eight-year-old man known as DJ Megatron was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest after heading to a store around the block from his Staten Island home. The shooting occurred at two in the morning on Sunday. Reports stated that the DJ was traveling alone and killed instantly.

The DJ, a lifelong Staten Island resident and graduate of Curtis High School, allegedly just moved into a new home. The injuries he suffered were caused by a single wound that impacted his left ribcage, lung, and heart. No arrests have been made by authorities following their investigation.

Some reports stated that the thirty-eight-year-old was recently engaged to the twenty-four-year-old mother of his children. In addition to his fiancé, he is survived by an eleven-year-old daughter, four-year-old son, and nine-month-old baby boy. Friends and family of the DJ claim that he had a great personality and wasn’t on bad terms with anyone prior to his untimely death.

According to reports, police have no motives, but believe the attack may have been impersonal based on the nature of the crime. Family members of the DJ are in agreement with police, and stated that he must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s possible that the DJ was a victim of a botched robbery.

Alternate reports have stated that the DJ’s cell phone was recovered from the scene, and that he may have been distracted at the time of the incident. It’s still unclear whether he was talking on the phone prior to being shot. Some reports have claimed that witnesses spotted at least four young men running from the area at the time of the shooting.

The DJ’s sixty-year-old mother was informed of her son’s death by a phone call to her home in Georgia, and claimed to have always considered her son a golden child. Family members of the DJ are currently accepting donations to a fund for his children and funeral expenses. The manager of the DJ was known as “J. Smoove”; among his mentors were Funkmaster Flex and Fatman Scoop.

At the time of the shooting, a bystander called 911 after hearing a gunshot. The DJ was laying face-up on the pavement by the time medical personnel arrived at the scene. Reports detailing the aftermath of the shooting have stated that the DJ’s head was close to the curb and a baseball cap rested near his side.

A New York City Police Department forensics team spent at least four hours analyzing the area. Though no motive has been uncovered after the investigation, some reports have alluded to a possible altercation between the DJ and an unidentified person who wrote nasty messages in response to some of his online videos. The posts claimed that the DJ owed him money, but neither friends nor family members of the DJ could confirm any knowledge of financial debts.

The DJ had a long career in the music industry and appeared on television as a BET segment host. He worked for a variety of hip-hop and R&B radio stations in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. He also appeared in several independent and low-budget films that include “Killa Season” and “State Property 2.” He was also known for interviewing bystanders about topics that ranged from sports to “the five elements of hip-hop.”

DJ Megatron started in the business as an intern and began his career at Kiss-FM. Friends of the DJ say that he claimed to have been thinking of pursuing roles for local television news. In addition to a career in the music business, the DJ was also involved in charities and was known to help up-and-coming artists, especially those from Staten Island.

News: Long Island Cop’s Domestic Dispute

(Long Island, N.Y.) A forty-seven-year-old retired Hempstead Village Police detective has been arrested for assaulting his forty-six-year-old wife. The woman is a commanding officer of the 81st Precinct in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant. She was at the home of a friend, a New York City Police Detective, when her husband attacked her.

Reports were conflicting as to whether the husband and wife had been estranged prior to the incident. Some say that the two were separated and living in separate apartments. Others claim that they shared a home in Baldwin and were planning on taking a vacation to Jamaica the following week. Though they’ve been married for ten years, at least one neighbor of the couple claimed to have heard frequent arguing.

Likewise, the accounts of the incident and what led up to the assault were conflicting. Some reports say that the husband had been suspecting his wife of having an affair with the NYPD detective she was visiting. In those accounts, the husband claims to have followed his wife to the detective’s house in the Baywood section of Islip on the morning of the incident. He said his wife told him she was going to work, and because he had been looking for evidence of the affair, he waited in his car for about two hours.

The attack occurred before ten on the morning of March 21st. Another report claimed that the husband recognized the detective after seeing him at a bar with his wife the night before the incident. Regardless, both the wife and the detective deny any accusations of having an affair.

Allegedly, the husband began to pound on the front door to get his wife’s attention. She then told the detective that she would deal with her husband, but instructed him to lock the doors and remain inside the house. She met her husband on the porch and locked the door behind her. The couple then engaged in a heated argument.

The altercation became physical when he threw her to the ground and began to punch and kick her head and body. Other accounts of the incident, documenting the husband’s version, claim that she attacked him and he fell onto her body. He claimed that they are both good people who snapped.

Other reports claimed that the wife’s piercing screams became so loud that the detective retrieved his firearm to protect her. The husband then kicked open the front door, but was confronted by the detective when he attempted to approach him. The detective demanded that the husband vacate his property. The husband proceeded to leave after he assaulted his wife a second time and yelled profanities. Allegedly, he threatened her, ordering her not to come home and to remain at the detective’s home.

In the wake of this incident, the wife suffered from contusions, swelling and bruising, back and head pain, and was hospitalized for broken ribs. She requested and received an order of protection against her husband by the judge at his arraignment. The court proceeding was held the following day at the First District Court in Central Islip.

In addition to being the commanding officer of a Brooklyn Precinct, the woman is a twenty-four-year NYPD veteran and comes from a family of cops. Her four sisters and a brother are members of the force; another brother is a corrections officer and another is a bounty hunter. She was appointed to the commanding officer position after a crime-stat fudging scandal was associated with the former leader.

Her husband, who surrendered at the Third Precinct in Bay Shore, is being charged with three misdemeanors of third-degree assault, second-degree criminal trespass, and fourth-degree criminal mischief.

News: Deadly Snake Missing from Bronx Zoo

(Long Island, N.Y.) Workers of the reptile house at the Bronx Zoo discovered that an adolescent Egyptian Cobra was missing last Friday afternoon. Though they are confident that the snake has been confined to a non-public area of the building, zoo officials closed the reptile house over the weekend. The snake belongs to a highly venomous species that can kill an adult human in as little as fifteen minutes.

The snake is twenty inches in length, but belongs to a species that can reach between five and eight feet in the wild. It is a member of the hooded species that is native to northern Africa. In its natural environment, it can kill an adult elephant in three hours by dispersing 175-200mg of venom in a single bite.

If left untreated a single snakebite can cause irrecoverable damage to nerve tissue. Death results from paralysis and respiratory failure. Experts believe that the snake’s immediate reaction to humans is to escape, but also note that it is likely to attack when threatened.

The Bronx Zoo, which opened in 1899, is run by a nonprofit organization called the Wildlife Conservation Society. Zoo officials are confident that the snake will be found curled in a dark corner of the building. They say that the snake went missing from an off-exhibit enclosure in a non-public and relatively isolated area of the reptile house. Experts maintain that this particular species of snake seeks enclosed areas and will normally avoid open spaces.

Zoo workers say that their best chances of finding the snake will be when it gets too hungry or thirsty to remain in its hiding space. They claim that the reptile house will be shutdown while the search is ongoing, and will remain closed indefinitely. This particular species of cobra is known for its large, broad head and snout and large eyes with round pupils. They appear brown or black in color and have necks that can reach between six and seven inches.

In the wild, Egyptian cobras are nocturnal and are not afraid of humans. They are attracted to human dwellings by chickens, rats, and livestock. They feed on small mammals, lizards, toads, and other snakes.

Egyptian cobras have a couple of claims to fame, and have made headlines for other reasons. In the fall of 2006 a case involved an Egyptian cobra that was kept as a pet and went missing from a home in Canada. The snake was missing for at least six months before authorities believed it hid between the walls of the home. The owner was fined $17,000 and was sent to jail after the home was forced to be evacuated.

The Egyptian cobra has a long history of meaning, and was especially significant in ancient times. The snake was considered a symbol of royalty in Roman Egypt and was formally known as an “asp.” It was used in Greek and Egyptian executions for those who were deemed to deserve a nobler death.

Egyptian cobras are perhaps most known for their association with the ancient queen Cleopatra. According to myth, it was believed that Cleopatra experimented on prisoners doomed for execution and found that the asp bite was the least terrible of venomous deaths. She believed it was less painful because the victim would become sleepy and suffered from less muscle spasms prior to death. An Egyptian cobra was smuggled into her fig basket and assisted her suicide.

The recent events at the Bronx Zoo have many animal activists taking a stand against the captivity of such animals. Also, many followers of this story have noticed the coincidence between the missing snake and the recent death of actress Elizabeth Taylor, who once played Cleopatra in a movie with co-star and former husband Richard Burton.

News: Recent Crimes and Incidents on Long Island

(Long Island, N.Y.) Last night a house fire broke out in Malverne at the home of sixty-two-year-old widow. Around seven-thirty an emergency team put out the small fire, which is believed to have started by a bathroom wastebasket. They later found the woman dead and lying on the bathroom floor.

The widow had lived alone in the house for years since the death of her husband and was a mother of four. One of the woman’s children came to check on her daily. The fire is believed to have originated where her body was found on the first-floor bathroom of the two-story house.

Firefighters said that the fire was contained to the wastebasket, the contents of the cabinet, and items on the bathroom floor. While some reports stated that the fire never spread into the walls, others claimed that the bathroom wall had ignited.

The Malverne and Lynbrook Fire Department both responded to the call, as well as the Malverne Police Department and Ambulance Corps. Between thirty and fifty firefighters were at the scene, taking minutes to extinguish the flames. At least eight pieces of equipment were used to contain the fire.

Both the Nassau County Fire Marshall and arson/bomb squad were called to investigate. Though the fire was ruled non-suspicious and accidental, officials are still investigating. Some reports claim that many cigarettes were found at the home, but no evidence points to an exact cause of the fire.

After the woman was discovered, medical staff and technicians attempted to revive her. They claim that she did not appear to be breathing and was pronounced dead at eight o’clock that night. Smoke inhalation is believed to be the cause of death, though nothing has been confirmed by the coroner.

In other news, a sixty-one-year-old substitute teacher was arrested at roughly six-thirty Thursday morning for three counts of promoting the sexual performance of a child. The man was in possession of over four hundred images of child pornography, and was also charged with two counts of possession. He was arrested by Nassau County Police and arraigned today at First District Court in Hempstead.

The teacher, from Massapequa Park, worked for the Cold Spring Harbor School District. Police say that the files on his home computer were used to share images of child pornography with other online users. His school computer was checked but nothing explicit was discovered by authorities.

The school district he worked for claims he was immediately suspended without pay after they learned of the charges. He was a general sub who never had complaints or problems brought to the attention of school authorities.

In another story, a twenty-one-year-old man from Dix Hills was arrested for robbing seven banks in the last five weeks. Suffolk County Major Case Investigations Unit is continuing their investigation and additional charges are expected to be brought against him. The Second Precinct Neighborhood Enforcement/Special Operations Team and the Detective Special Operations Team were also involved in the case.

Metropolitan Transit Authority Police and New York City Police helped detain the suspect from a Long Island Rail Road train in Brooklyn, and he was arraigned today at First District Court in Central Islip. Among the banks he robbed were TD Banks in North Babylon, West Islip, Commack, and Lake Grove, Bank of America in Deer Park and West Babylon, and Capital One in Babylon. The robberies occurred between February 17th and March 24th. The man also had a twenty-one-year-old accomplice in the February 23rd robbery of the TD Bank in West Islip. The accomplice faces charges for one count of robbery.

News: Long Island Man Pleads Guilty to Slashing

(Long Island, N.Y.) A twenty-eight-year-old man from Islip Terrace plead guilty in Cayuga County Court on Wednesday to attempted murder in the second degree. The charge came from an incident that happened a little over a month ago in Auburn, New York and involved an altercation with a friend of his girlfriend’s mother. After the argument escalated, the twenty-eight-year-old slashed the woman’s throat, nearly decapitating her.

The man had traveled upstate to visit his girlfriend at her mother’s house, who was there with her two children. The couple met at Conifer Park drug rehabilitation in-patient facility. The forty-one-year-old victim allegedly criticized her attacker for their lifestyle of drug abuse.

The victim was visiting her friend, the homeowner, and was planning on attending a local benefit. The altercation, which happened at roughly one-thirty in the morning on February 20th, caused the attacker’s girlfriend to call 911. She claims to have stepped out of the room for a short amount of time, only to find her mother bleeding and her boyfriend holding a knife.

The homeowner had stepped out of the home and was at a local store. After returning and processing the situation, she was able to detain the attacker as he tried to flee by foot. Police found her sitting on him in the middle of the street after she had jumped on his back and tackled him to the ground.

Though the woman suffered no harm in this case, police urge civilians not to pursue possibly dangerous suspects. Nonetheless, the woman claimed she would have done anything to prevent her friend’s attacker from making an escape. Following the struggle, police realized the attacker sustained a self-inflicted knife wound to the neck.

The victim suffered from a slash wound from ear to ear, almost causing her to bleed to death. Officials say she was minutes away from death when she was hospitalized. She has since been recovering after being released from the hospital.

Police say that the victim and her attacker were strangers before the Auburn incident. She was originally in critical condition after sustaining the wound from a folding pocketknife. Some reports say she was waiting in a nearby car when police came on the scene.

Originally, the victim was taken to Upstate Medical hospital, but was transferred to University Hospital in Syracuse for emergency surgery. Auburn is located in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and is about twenty minutes southwest of Syracuse. The attacker, who injured himself after the attack, was taken to Auburn Memorial Hospital for superficial wounds and released after a short stay.

The victim’s life was saved by a military-trained Emergency Medical Technician who pinched off her jugular vein. She will have permanent nerve damage to her face along with a scar and was put into a medically-induced coma for a week before she healed. Her attacker is being forced to pay for all of her medical expenses.

In addition to second-degree attempted murder, he also plead guilty to assault and criminal possession of a weapon. He was arraigned at Auburn City Court and held in Cayuga County Jail without bail. His sentencing will be held on May 3rd, and he must have five years of post-release supervision in addition to a possible eighteen-year sentence.

News: Piece of World Trade Center Donated to Shooting Victim

(Long Island, N.Y.) A nine-year-old girl who was killed in the Tucson, Arizona shooting will receive a piece of the World Trade Center in her honor. She was the youngest victim in January’s shooting rampage which killed six people and left thirteen people wounded and injured including representative Gabrielle Giffords. The piece of steel from the World Trade Center is being donated by the New York and New Jersey Port Authority which owns the trade center site.

The little girl was born on September 11th, 2001 and has been given attention for being born and having died on days of national tragedy. The piece of steel will be five and a half feet in length and will be part of a sculpture molded into the shape of an angel. The sculpture, designed by Lei Hennessy-Owen, will be ready in time for a dedication ceremony on April 1st.

The steel from the World Trade Center will join a three and a half foot long piece of steel from the Pentagon. The steel was collected at the scene of the 9/11 attacks. Also, a large rock from the crash site of United Airlines flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania will be included in the statue entitled “The Freedom’s Steadfast Angel of Love.”

The dedication ceremony for April 1st is expected to have a turnout from family members of 9/11 victims. The steel donated from the World Trade Center will be retrieved from a hangar at John F. Kennedy International Airport and shipped to Arizona in time for the event. It is a piece of an I-beam, and it will help construct the statue along with the other 9/11 memorial pieces.

The angel will stand almost ten feet tall and be placed at James D. Kriegh Park in Oro Valley, Arizona. It’s the same park that once hosted the nine-year-old girl’s little league games. She will be honored in opening day dedications and ceremonies by the Canyon del Oro little league.

The sculptor of the statue also constructed different sculptures at three of the 9/11 crash sites and has created many pieces across the country. The little girl will continue to be honored by donations to her memorial fund. Within one month after January’s shooting, donations were made from ten different countries and forty-three states.

As a child born on September 11th, 2001, the nine-year-old victim of the shooting was highlighted in a book called “Faces of Hope.” A child from each state was selected to help put together the book. The girl was noted for her proud participation in her little league as second baseman and the only female player on the team.

Coming from a baseball family, the girl was honored during a charity game played in Tucson. The game was between the Chicago White Sox and the Arizona Diamondbacks. The girl’s father is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and her grandfather once managed the Philadelphia Phillies.

More efforts were made by 9/11 sites to honor the youngest victim of January’s shooting. A giant American flag was sent from ground zero to be used at her funeral. Family and friends of the little girl stood underneath the flag during the service.

News: Robotic-Assisted Surgeries in Long Island Hospitals

(Long Island, N.Y.) Hospitals across Long Island are looking into the advanced system of robotic-assisted technology to aid them with minimally-invasive surgical procedures. A top-of-the-line system known as the “daVinci Robotic Surgical System” has helped several teams of specialists perform successful surgeries in different hospitals on Long Island. The daVinci Robotic Surgical System is considered one of the most advanced systems and was named after the man who invented the very first robot.

At Oceanside‘s South Nassau Communities Hospital a sixty-eight-year-old patient had recently undergone a surgery known as a lobectomy to remove an early stage of lung cancer. The daVinci Robotic Surgical System was used to assist a multidisciplinary team of doctors. The hospital’s director of body imaging and director of thoracic oncology assisted in the surgery along with an interventional radiologist. A specialist in pulmonary and critical care, a cardiothoracic surgeon, and a cardiologist/specialist in internal medicine were also among the team.

Patients suffering from early stages of cancer are the most common candidates for robotic-assisted surgery. The sixty-eight-year-old patient was originally treated for anemia, a disease caused by a deficiency of red blood cells in the blood, before being diagnosed with colon cancer. She was scheduled to have surgery to remove the cancer in her colon.

Part of the patient’s pre-operational procedures included a chest x-ray. The x-ray revealed a mass in the upper lobe of her left lung. After experiencing more tests, the results confirmed that the patient was also suffering from the early stages of lung cancer.

The patient had undergone a technique known as wire localization, which is used when the mass is small and cannot be located by standard procedures. The daVinci Robotic Surgical System assisted by allowing doctors to separate the upper left lobe of the lung from the blood supply pumping from the heart. Finger controls on the robot provided doctors with a greater sense of dexterity.

Some of the advantages of robotic-assisted surgery include an increased range of motion, three-dimensional high definition visualization, and a reduced risk of infection for the patient. One doctor involved with a similar surgery stated that he felt as if he was miniaturized and placed inside the patient’s chest cavity.

Traditional surgical procedures are painful, incapacitating, and require a longer post-operational period of recovery. In a traditional lobectomy, a large incision between the ribs is inflicted on the patient as opposed to three or four small incisions using pencil-thin robotic-assisted surgical tools and instruments. Robot technology provides the patients with less blood loss, scarring, and need of transfusions.

The first Long Island hospital to perform a lobectomy using robot-assisted technology was Mineola‘s Winthrop University Hospital on August 17th of last year. They treated a seventy-nine-year-old resident of Franklin Square. With the use of the daVinci Robotic Surgical System similar surgeries last two hours, require a maximum of three days recovery before discharge, and there is virtually no post-operational pain.

The number of worldwide robotic-assisted surgeries has increased from 80,000 in 2007 to 205,000 in 2009. The most popular robotic-assisted surgeries treat men for early stages of prostate cancer.

Another type of robotic-assisted surgery dealing with the removal of the thymus, an immune system gland located in front of the heart, required only ninety minutes of surgery and two days before discharge. Other popular robotic-assisted surgeries include urologic, gynecologic, kidney, chest, and colon surgeries. Gastric bypass surgery can also be performed using robotic-assisted technology.