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Police had closed down several lanes and the shoulder while placing their vehicles and cones behind the initial two-car crash scene on the westbound highway near Park Avenue -- west of Route 17 and east of the Passaic River -- around 9:45 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 13, Police Chief John Russo said.
Robert Thornton, 31, of Nick's Towing Service in Rutherford, had one of the vehicles on the flatbed and was preparing the second when a three-vehicle crash occurred behind the police about 45 minutes later, Russo said.
One vehicle hit another, spinning it out, then barreled "straight down the shoulder," nearly hitting several officers, as well as occupants from the first crash and marked police units, the chief said.
It then struck the car that Thornton was working on, he said.
Officers freed him from under the vehicle and rendered aid, Russo said.
Thornton, a former firefighter who lives in Ridgefield Park and volunteers with the Moonachie First Aid & Rescue Squad, was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center.
"Everybody did everything right," Russo said. "The highway was shut down. Vehicles and cones were used to block the area. There were emergency lights on. Everyone had on their vests. It's terrible."
The driver in the second crash was hospitalized, as was a pregnant occupant of the first car she hit and an occupant involved in the first accident, Russo said. None of their injuries were considered life-threatening, he said.
Detectives investigating the crashes include an officer of Russo's who's a member of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Fatal Accident Investigations Unit. Interviews were being conducted over the next several days, the chief said.
"At the moment, it doesn't appear criminal," he said.
Russo thanked Nick’s Towing Service, the Rutherford Ambulance Corps and several other BLS units that responded, as well as the Bergen County Sheriff's Bureau of Criminal Identification, which collected evidence, firefighters from Rutherford, police from Lyndhurst and East Rutherford and the New Jersey Department of Transportation "for their assistance throughout the night."
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