An accident on Thursday that resulted in a Brooklyn man freezing to death while he and his wife were trapped in their car for 32 hours has renewed the discussion for cellphone service along a mountainous stretch of highway in Adirondack Park.
Alfred and Barbara Langner of Borough Park were returning from a wedding in Montreal when their car went off Interstate 87 about 100 miles south of the Canadian border and landed in the woods, the State Police said.
The accident happened about 2 a.m. on Thursday, but it was not until 10 a.m. on Friday that a state trooper spotted the car while pulling over another vehicle.
''The wife told emergency personnel that she tried to dial 911 for hours, but couldn't get a signal,'' said Raymond Thatcher, emergency services director in Essex County.
The temperatures had fallen to 7 degrees below zero overnight. By the time rescuers arrived, Mr. Langner, 63, was dead, Mr. Thatcher said. Mrs. Langner, 58, was in fair condition yesterday at Fletcher Allen Health Center in Burlington, Vt., with frostbitten feet and an injured back, the police said.
State Senator Betty Little, whose district covers six counties in northeastern New York, blames environmental groups for the lack of reliable cellphone coverage along the stretch of highway known as the Northway.
''The environmentalists say that cellphone towers spoil the view, but if we had them, this man's life could have been saved,'' Senator Little said.
The Adirondack Park Agency, which governs land use in the park, and environmental groups agreed in 2002 to install 33 towers, each about 40 feet tall, which they say would have eliminated the dead spots. But major cellphone companies declined to provide service, saying the towers were too small, Senator Little said.
John F. Sheehan, a spokesman for the Adirondack Council, an environmental group, said the companies did not go along with the plan because it was unprofitable, since it would not cover the communities on either side of the highway.
The state is working on a plan to install three 100-foot towers in rest areas on the northern tip of the Northway, as well as repeater towers between exits 28 and 34, the stretch where the accident occurred, Senator Little said. It is unclear, however, when or if the system will be in place.
