Emergency responders in New Jersey have been lucky to escape serious injury after a tow truck slammed into their police cruisers as they were responding to a crash on Route 80.
The incident occurred on February 24 but footage of it was only just released. Police were responding to a separate incident at the time. We can see an officer waving down an oncoming truck with his torch while the red and blue lights of his Ford Explorer cruiser flash. Flares can also be seen on the road.
However, the driver of the truck appears to have made no attempt to brake and ends up slamming into the patrol car at high speed. It pushes aside the first police car with no effort at all before slamming head-on into the second Ford Explorer. It went on to hit a third police vehicle and an ambulance before coming to a rest in the center of the road.
The force of the impact is terrifying and had anyone been inside the police vehicles at the time of the collision, they likely would have been hurt or even killed.
Bodycam footage taken after the crash shows the extent of the devastation caused. We can see that the tow truck was carrying a large box truck and that parts were left strewn across the road. TWOSU reports that the driver of an ambulance that was on the scene suffered a minor injury but that everyone else escaped uninjured.
It is not yet clear why the driver of the tow truck failed to slow down while approaching the scene of the previous crash but local authorities are investigating the incident. The driver of the truck was issued a summons for careless driver and all lanes were closed while the road was being cleaned up.