TOMS RIVER, New Jersey (WABC) --
Two people were killed and three others injured in a two-vehicle collision in New Jersey early Monday afternoon.
The crash between a red pickup truck and a gray car happened just after 12:30 p.m. in the eastbound lanes of Route 37, at Hospital Drive, in Toms River.
The truck ended up on its side.
Two women in the car were pronounced dead at the scene, while a third woman in the car was rushed to Jersey Shore Medical Center in critical condition.
A fourth woman in the car and the male driver of the pickup truck were taken to Community Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.
The cause of the accident is under investigation, but a witness says the truck was traveling eastbound, while the car was turning onto the highway from a medical complex.
"I had my right turn signal on, and I was turning in here," Alex Lukacs said. "And all the sudden, right in front of me, the car just flew straight out into the traffic. And that pickup truck struck them."
The victims' identities and ages have not been released.
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Two dead, three injured in serious crash on Route 37 in Toms River
Kathleen Hopkins and Ken Serrano, Asbury Park Press
July 2, 2018
TOMS RIVER, NEW JERSEY -
Two women were killed, and three more people were injured, one critically, in a collision shortly after noon on Route 37, west of the Garden State Parkway, by Hospital Drive, police said.
A full-size, red pickup truck and a grey sedan were left mangled when the vehicles collided in the eastbound lanes of Route 37, west of the Garden State Parkway, at the entrance to the Riverwood Plaza medical office complex, which is adjacent to Community Medical Center.
Two women in the sedan were killed, and a third woman in the car was critically injured and transported to Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune, Sgt. Ron Sermarini said.
A fourth woman in the sedan and the male driver of the pickup truck were taken for treatment to Community Medical Center, Sermarini said.
The crash was reported at 12:12 p.m.
The mangled pickup truck lay on its passenger side, its windshield shattered. It appears the roof was cut off of the sedan, which was covered by a blue tarp.
Personnel from the medical examiner's office were at the scene.
The eastbound lanes of Route 37 were closed as investigators worked the crash the scene, Sermarini said. Traffic was being diverted onto Hospital Drive and Lakehurst Road, causing significant backups.
Alex Lukacs, 60, of Manchester, a tech worker, described to police and then to the Press what he saw as he was heading east on Route 37 and turned into the plaza entrance right at what was about to become the accident scene.
The small gray sedan sped onto the highway without braking at the stop sign, he said.
“I just saw that car fly straight into the traffic,” Lukacs said. “The red truck was in the passing lane.”
The crash “was tremendous,” he said. “I won’t forget that for a while.”
Lucacs said he went to help another man who was leading one of the victims out of the passenger side of the sedan. They set her down on a wooden box that he believes blew out of the bed of the pickup truck, he said.
The pick-up truck belongs to Joseph M. Sanzari Inc., a highway and heavy construction company based in Hackensack.
A pickup truck that collided with a sedan on Route 37 Eastbound, east of Hospital Drive, is back on it’s wheels Monday afternoon, July 2, 2018. Two women who were in the sedan were killed in the collision. (Photo: Thomas P. Costello)
Joseph Sanzari, the chief operating officer of the company, said it is still learning details of the accident. He declined to discuss the driver, adding that the company is fully cooperating with the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.