WEST LONG BRANCH — A driver of a pickup truck suffered a seizure, causing the truck to roll over several times on the westbound side of Route 36 and slam into five cars stopped at the traffic light at Route 71 last Saturday at 10:20 a.m., police said.
Cpl. F. Douglas Haviland said the driver of the truck, Richard W. Wolinsky, 52, of Long Branch, and his mother, Mary Wolinsky, 83, also of Long Branch, who was a passenger in his vehicle, were injured in the crash and taken by ambulance to Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune.
The mother told police she thought her son had gone into a seizure and she grabbed him to try to pull him out of it. Haviland said the wheel of the pickup probably was turned in the process causing the vehicle to flip over.
When the pickup truck came to a stop, it was upside down, he said.
The drivers of the other vehicles that had been damaged by the pickup were identified as Bruce M. Wacker, 45, of Long Branch; Michelle Maleszewski, 46, of Long Branch; William K. Lyons, 50, of Sea Girt; Luis A. Ramirez, 30, of Staten Island, N.Y.; and Kenneth S. Vance, 37, of Bethpage, N.Y.
Haviland said two of the other drivers were injured. One was taken by ambulance to the hospital and the other drove himself to the hospital.
The accident is still under investigation, Haviland said.
— Sherry Conohan