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Footage released by the Bridgewater police department shows Officer Noah Allat arriving at the scene near the Thompson Avenue exit ramp at approximately 2:10 a.m., to find a man sitting on the curb holding his body, as a Hyundai Elantra and a 2007 Freightliner burned behind him.
The man tells Allat he was a passenger in the sedan, but there was still an occupant inside, identified by police as a 44-year-old North Plainfield resident. The 33-year-old Freehold operator of the tractor trailer had just exited the Speedway station when he was rear-ended by the sedan, police said.
The impact caused both vehicles to become fused together and erupt in flames as they continued to travel approximately 685 feet before coming to a stop on the shoulder, authorities said.
Allat asks the tractor trailer driver if there was anything inside the truck. He says previously kerosine. The officer then runs right toward the sedan and pulls the unconscious driver out.
Emergency responders from the Finderne, Martinsville, and Green Knoll Volunteer Fire Departments arrived to extinguish the flames, while paramedics and rescue squads from Robert Wood Johnson Hospital provided medical aid.
The Hyundai driver and his passenger were transported to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, and no charges have been filed at this time. Police are asking anyone with information to contact Officer Joseph Greco of the Bridgewater Township Police Department’s Traffic Safety Unit at (908) 722-4111 ext. 4186.
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