Several injured after recycling truck careens down steep street, crashes in nearby park in NJ

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Recycling truck sent careening down steep street in NJ

A recycling truck was sent careening down a steep street in Hawthorne, New Jersey and witnesses say it's a miracle no one was killed. Anthony Johnson has the latest on this story f

HAWTHORNE, New Jersey (WABC) -- Several people were injured after a recycling truck careened down a steep street in New Jersey, and witnesses say it's a miracle no one was killed.

Al Anema lives on Brockhuizen Lane in Hawthorne near the top of the hill and said he saw the truck just as the brakes failed and started rolling down the street.

"He was at a high rate of speed coming down and the two men that pick up the yard waste were on the back of the truck," Anema said. "Fortunately enough they had enough sense to jump off because I know when it hit Goffle Road and those walls in the park they would've been thrown off."

Two of the sanitation workers leaped off the moving truck as it hurled towards Goffle Brook Park.

Tire tracks along the Brockhuizen Lane show where the driver tried to get the back tires stuck in the mud to slow the truck while it sped downward toward Goffle Road.

The truck smashed through a wooden fence and into a rock wall in the park which stopped it from falling into the creek below.

Luckily, no one was driving along Goffle Road when the garbage truck barreled across and into the park.

The driver was hospitalized and the two workers were treated on the scene.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, but this is not the first time an accident like this has happened here.

Neighbors said this is the second time an accident like this has happened.

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