37°
The attendant had started her 2014 Audi to warm it up after finishing her shift at the Sunoco station on River Road when the thief arrived in another vehicle shortly after 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 31, Detective Lt. Robert Bracken said.
The thief, who was wearing a black ski mask, then crouched down next to her car and climbed in behind the wheel.
The attendant leaped onto the hood, then lost her grip when the bandit accelerated at high speed, Bracken said.
He and the driver whose car he arrived in both sped off down River Road toward Oak Street, with one of the vehicles nearly hitting an NJ TRANSIT bus, the detective said.
The attendant, meanwhile, lay in the street bleeding from the head until help arrived, he said.
Police and firefighters tended to her before an ambulance took her to St. Joseph's University Medical Center with several injuries that Bracken said were serious but not life-threatening.
Police found her vehicle abandoned in Newark later that night, he said.
An investigation was continuing.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Paterson and receive free news updates.
