A woman was run over by a police car while she was sunbathing on a towel at a popular beach in New Jersey , causing significant injuries and a minor panic as onlookers were "just screaming."
The woman was run over by an on-duty officer who was responding to an unidentified ordinance violation when the event happened, around 3:30 p.m., near Rio Grande Avenue. She was lying on a towel. Witnesses reported a chaotic scene as onlookers hurried to the woman's rescue and lifted the Ford F-150 police pickup truck's front end off of her.
"People were just screaming, ‘You hit somebody! Somebody’s under your truck! Stop!’” recalled Rose Simone, a nearby sunbather from Chalfont, Pennsylvania .
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Simone observed that despite the disturbance, she hadn't heard the car arriving until after the incident had already happened. Ryan Cortes, a different beachgoer who saw the accident, gave a description of the tumultuous events that transpired.
“The Wildwood police officer ran this lady over on the beach while he was swerving in and out of the beach, way too close. Citizens nearby had to scream at the truck to stop, and they had to gather to lift the vehicle off of the woman’s torso—it was truly horrible,” said Cortes.
In an act of swift thinking and cooperation that probably made a significant contribution to the emergency response, beachgoers rapidly united and tried to lift the police car off the injured woman.
“The woman appeared to be moving, but she seemed to be severely injured, as you can imagine,” said Cortes. The woman, whose name has not been made public, suffered from lung damage, three shattered vertebrae, and several broken ribs, among other catastrophic injuries.
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Emergency personnel removed her off the shore, and it is anticipated that she will live. Chief of Police for Wildwood, Joseph Murphy, verified the event and stated that the offending cop is routinely assigned to beach patrol.
The department's internal affairs unit and an accident reconstruction officer will look into the circumstances surrounding the accident, the chief said, without naming the officer or the victim.
As of Saturday, the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office and the Wildwood Police Department had exchanged questions with each other and offered little information. Ernie Troiano, the mayor of Wildwood, called the occurrence an "unfortunate situation" and reassured the public that a thorough investigation is still underway.
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