CHESTERFILED: Unforgettable crash of 2012

By Jen Samuel, Managing Editor
   CHESTERFIELD — The community faced a tragedy Feb. 6 when an elementary school bus and an over-loaded dump truck collided at the intersection of Route 528 and Old York Road.
   Twenty-five kindergarten through sixth grade children were riding the bus that day. Seventeen children were injured in the crash although the majority of those students suffered nonlife-threatening injures.
   Triplet Isabelle Tezsla, 11, a sixth-grader, died in the collision.
   Her surviving sixth-grade triplet sisters, Sophie and Natalie, were critically injured as was fifth-grader Jonathan Zdybel. All three children underwent ongoing medical treatment after the crash.
   Chesterfield Township police said the collision occurred at 8:05 a.m. The dump truck struck the driver’s side rear of the bus at the intersection. The impact of the crash caused the bus to spin until it hit a pole along the roadside.
   The bus was just three stops away from arriving at the Chesterfield Township Elementary School.
   The parents of Isabelle filed a civil compliant against the owners of both vehicles, Herman’s Trucking Company, of Wrightstown, and GST Transport Corporation, of Southampton, in a 25-page civil compliant filed with the Burlington County Superior Court on April 18.
   ”The dump truck was not fit for travel on the road,” the Tezsla couple stated in the complaint.
   In the lawsuit, New Jersey State Police Sgt. Anthony Tezsla and his wife, Susan Tezsla, called the collision “a heartbreaking, preventable tragedy.”
   In March, the drivers were issued driving citations. The summonses, which are noncriminal charges, were for motor vehicle offenses.
   In April, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office released its findings from toxicology reports, which showed neither driver was under the influence of illegal substances or alcohol at the time of the crash.
   The New Jersey State Police’s commercial vehicle inspection unit issued two summonses against dump truck operator Michael Caporale, 38, of New Egypt, who was charged with failing to properly tarp and secure the truck’s load.
   The state police cited Herman’s Trucking for inadequate braking; exceeding gross weight by 4,950 pounds; exceeding tire weight limit; and over axle weight by 13,450 pounds.
   The bus driver, John Tieman, 66, of Beverly, was charged by the Chesterfield Township Police Department for failure to stop or yield.
   The collision is under an ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.