Families and friends are mourning four young people who died in a wrong-way crash on the New Jersey Turnpike over the weekend, a collision that ultimately sent their vehicle into the path of a tractor-trailer.
The accident happened at about 1 a.m. Sunday as the group headed southbound, south of Exit 1, in Carneys Point Township. A Dodge pickup truck, driven by a 41-year-old Colorado man, was headed northbound in the southbound lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike.
At some point, officials said, the Dodge collided with a Mazda SUV, being driven by Yaakov Kilberg, 19, of Lakewood, New Jersey, that was headed southbound on the New Jersey Turnpike. The collision pushed Kilberg’s vehicle into the path of a Freightliner tractor-trailer. He had three passengers with him.
All four of them died — Kilberg and Aharon Lebovits and Shlomo Cohen, both 18-year-olds from Lakewood, and Chaim Grossman, an 18-year-old from Fallsburg, New York.
The Dodge driver, police said, was seriously hurt in the crash. There was no immediate update on his condition Monday. The tractor-trailer driver wasn’t hurt.
All lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike through that area were closed for several hours to facilitate the response.
No charges have been filed at this time. An investigation is ongoing.