Dr. Richard Milazzo Jr.
A doctor who had been a fixture in the Dunkirk-Fredonia community for decades has died. Dr. Richard Milazzo Jr. passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday afternoon after his car was struck by a tow truck in Wethersfield in Wyoming County.
The Batavia Daily News reported Milazzo, 80, of Silver Creek was westbound at 2:26 p.m. on Wethersfield Road. He stopped at the Hermitage Road intersection and started to cross the highway. Milazzo pulled into the path of a 2022 Ram tow truck driven southbound on Hermitage Road, Wyoming County sheriff’s deputies said. The tow truck struck his Subaru on the driver’s side door and both vehicles went off the road.
He was pronounced dead at the scene by the county coroner.
Brooks-TLC officials expressed they were “saddened” to hear the news. “If there was ever a doctor who emulated ‘commitment to community,’ it was Dr. Richard Milazzo,” said Ken Morris, president and chief executive officer. “Dr. Milazzo was a well-respected physician in the Dunkirk-Fredonia community – treating patients for over 50 years. He had an amazing tenure at Brooks Hospital as a colleague and friend. We are deeply saddened by Dr. Milazzo’s passing and will miss him more than words can express.
Dr. Marlene Hassenfratz, chief medical officer at Brooks-TLC Hospital System called Milazzo a “truly great doctor and a very dear man. He made such a difference in the many lives that he touched. He will be truly missed. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.”
In a 2020 article in the OBSERVER, the primary care doctor had been treating patients in Dunkirk and Fredonia for 54 years. He graduated from State University of New York at Buffalo in 1969 and was affiliated with Brooks-TLC Hospital System.
When asked what drew him to medicine, Dr. Milazzo credited his father, a urologist, with playing a role in his interest, though he says it went deeper when it came time to choose what branch of medicine he would pursue. “I really like the intellectual challenges of internal medicine, where you basically cover all of the different specialties,” he said. To that end, Dr. Milazzo says he still studies and researches medical journals, “almost every night” to make sure he is continually offering the best care to his patients.
“I have patients I have seen for more than 40 years,” he says. “I went into this because I wanted to help people, and I know that sounds corny, but it’s true. So, if I have a visit where I feel like I haven’t helped the person, I feel bad about it — that’s a wasted visit for me.”
The 2020 article noted that Dr. Milazzo wasn’t ready to retire and was motivated to keep learning and keep serving his patients. “I have developed a lot of relationships with many of my patients,” he said with a laugh. “At least once a week I’ll have a patient say, ‘don’t retire until I die,’ which I don’t know how to take that.”
Services have yet to be announced.