Dan Stamm

Tractor-Trailer, Bus Crash on New Jersey Turnpike

No serious injuries reported as a charter bus carrying 51 passengers from North Carolina collides with a tractor-trailer hauling whiskey bottles near the Woodrow Wilson Service Area

What to Know

  • Tractor-trailer and a charter bus with 51 passengers on board collided near mile-marker 57.
  • No serious injuries were reported in the crash near the Woodrow Wilson Service Area.
  • The cause of the crash in the outer lanes remained under investigation midday Wednesday.

A charter bus loaded with people headed for New York City rear-ended a tractor-trailer hauling whiskey bottles Wednesday morning along the New Jersey Turnpike. Thankfully no one suffered any serious injuries.

The crash happened just after 9 a.m. as the bus from North Carolina approached mile-marker 57 in the northbound lanes near the Woodrow Wilson Service Area in Hamilton Township, dispatchers and state police said.

Ambulances responded to the scene and at least one stretcher was visible as people gathered on the side of the highway. One woman appeared to suffer an ankle injury.

Fifteen of the 51 passengers on the bus suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were transported to a nearby hospital, state police said.

The bus appeared to have front-end damage and the impact pushed in the windshield.

The truck driver, Randy Clover of Bristol, Tenn., said he got a quite a scare from the wreck.

"Traffic slowed up so I slowed up while the bus didn't, I got a shock," he said. "It scared me... I didn't have to look, I knew what happened immediately, I didn't know what hit me but I knew something hit me."

The cause of the wreck remained under investigation as police had the center and right lanes of the outer turnpike blocked until about 11 a.m.

The uninjured passengers waited at the nearby rest stop for a backup bus, police said. The passengers were part of a non-private charter from North Carolina.

Clover said he was glad "nobody was really banged up" because it could have been a lot worse. He hoped to get his load of whiskey bottles to a plant nearby.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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