In the early morning hours of July 24, 1966, O'Hara was struck by a jeep on the Fire Island beach, after the beach taxi in which he had been riding with a group of friends broke down in the dark.[21][22][23][24] He died the next day at age 40 of a ruptured liver at Bayview Hospital in Mastic Beach, Long Island.[25] Attempts to bring negligent homicide charges against the jeep's driver, 23-year-old Kenneth L. Ruzicka, were unsuccessful; many of O'Hara's friends felt the local police had conducted a lax investigation to protect one of their own locals.[26] O'Hara was buried in Green River Cemetery on Long Island.[27] The painter Larry Rivers, a longtime friend and lover,[28] delivered one of the eulogies, along with Bill Berkson, Edwin Denby, and René d'Harnoncourt.[29]
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