Mother Dies, Children Injured In Three-Car Freehold Township Crash

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, NJ — An Ocean County mother is dead and her three children hospitalized after a collision involving three vehicles on a rural road in Freehold Township Thursday afternoon, authorities said.

The accident happened in the area of Siloam Road and Old Turkey Swamp Road in the township at about 5 p.m. on July 14, Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Lori Linskey announced Friday.

Members of the Monmouth County Serious Collision Analysis Response Team, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the Freehold Township Police Department responded to the scene, authorities said in a news release.

At the scene were a Ford F350 pickup truck driven by a 53-year-old male resident of Little Egg Harbor Township, a Chrysler Pacifica minivan driven by a 42-year-old female resident of Ocean Township in Ocean County, and a Honda CR-V SUV driven by a 34-year-old male resident of Jackson Township, the prosecutor's office said.

The woman, the driver of the minivan, was pronounced dead at the scene; the woman's 3-year-old child was transported via medical helicopter to Jersey Shore Regional Medical Center in Neptune, where she remains in critical condition, according to the prosecutor.

The woman’s other two children, ages 9 and 13, were also taken to Jersey Shore via ambulance for treatment of injuries not believed to be life-threatening, authorities said.

The preliminary investigation has indicated that the pickup truck left the southbound lane of Siloam Road and struck the involved SUV with a glancing blow before colliding head-on with the minivan immediately thereafter, the news release said. Both surviving drivers remained at the scene, authorities said.

This is the second fatal accident in less then two weeks in Freehold Township. On July 3, a five-car accident on Route 9 claimed three lives of a Marlboro family and left another driver seriously injured.

Another accident on the Garden State Parkway in Aberdeen on Sunday took the lives of three women in their 20s.

The latest accident remains under investigation. Anyone who may have witnessed the collision or has any information about it is urged to contact Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office Det. Nicolas Logothetis at 800-533-7443 or Freehold Township Police Department Det. Lt. Joseph Winowski at 732-294-5139.