A New Jersey man has died in a fire after repeatedly turning his SUV’s engine back while trying to get out of a snow bank, authorities said.
Shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday, Little Ferry police said officers responded to a report of a car crashing into a pile of snow after crashing near an embankment near Losen Slote Creek Park, about 20 miles northwest of New York City, went down.
Little Ferry police captain Ronald Klein told NBC News on Thursday that two officers found a 62-year-old driver repeatedly turned the engine on and swung back and forth with his Mazda SUV to remove the vehicle from the snow. .
He said officers told the man to stop speeding before telling him they were returning to their vehicle to summon a tow vehicle. As they walk back to their vehicle, officers hear a bang and see the SUV catch fire.
Officers tried to get into the vehicle, but Klein said the doors were locked. After several attempts to break into the SUV, one officer finally broke the rear passenger window.
Klein said at the time that the vehicle was engulfed in flames and smoke, forcing officers to pull away from the SUV at a safe distance.
According to police, the driver’s name was not released, but his family was notified.
Police’s Little Ferry Department and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office will oversee the investigation.
The fatal crash was one of many deadly incidents during a major winter storm that suspended flights, cut off electricity and closed schools and Covid-19 vaccination sites across the northeast.
A man in Plains Township, Pennsylvania, shot dead a couple in his neighborhood on Monday morning in a homicide-suicide.
In Allentown, Pennsylvania, a 67-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease dies from hypothermia after straying from her home, NBC Philadelphia reports. Her body was found four streets away on Monday morning.
In the city of Adamstown, Maryland, a 64-year-old man died after driving around the back of a truck with recycling services around noon on Monday, which rolled on an icy drive, the Frederick County sheriff said.
And two people – a 69-year-old woman and a 42-year-old woman – died Sunday in separate incidents in Pennsylvania, state police said. The 42-year-old woman died in an accident during the snowstorm in Tioga province, and the other 69-year-old crashed during slippery conditions during snow in Bucks County.
