Thursday morning crash sends five to area hospitals.
By: Melissa Morgan
A commuter van smashed into a tractor-trailer in South Brunswick triggering a five-vehicle crash and leaving seven people injured Thursday morning.
According to police, the crash occurred on Route 535 at Stults Lane at 5:40 a.m. when a 1999 Ford Ecoline commuter van veered into the right lane and rear-ended a 2000 Kenworth tractor-trailer driven by Gerald Clark, 59, of Richmond, Va.
Police said Yoni Flores, 42, of West Orange had been driving northbound in the left lane and failed to notice that traffic had stopped in front of him. He struck the truck and then veered back into the left lane, striking the rear of a 2001 Ford Windstar driven by Eugene Skrzypko, 48, of Carteret. The crash forced the Windstar into the rear of a 1999 Honda CRV driven by Nancy Nagy, 55, of Woodbridge, police said.
Debris from the accident spilled into the south-bound lanes of Route 535. A 1998 Toyota wagon driven by Sushia Shah, 59, of Old Bridge ran over the debris, lost a wheel and went off the road.
The Monmouth Junction First Aid Squad transported three passengers of the commuter van Maria Morocho, 18, of Orange; Sonia Tojar, 22, of Orange; and Santos Hernandez, 44, of Orange to St. Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick.
The Kendall Park First Aid Squad took Dorothy Lima, 45, of Perth Amboy, a rear-seat passenger in the Honda CRV, to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick and Mr. Skrzypko to St. Peter’s. Two other passengers in the commuter van complained of pain but did not want to be transported to the hospital.
The commuter van was improperly registered and Mr. Flores was issued a summons for careless driving, police said. The accident remains under investigation.