MIDDLETOWN, NJ — The family of a 15-year-old Eatontown boy sued Monmouth County, the Monmouth County Parks System, the town of Middletown and a slew of other entities after the teen was seriously injured while playing on construction equipment that had been left in Huber Woods Park.
Huber Woods Park is 390 acres of thick woodland located in the Locust section of Middletown.
The incident happened in 2022: At 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 10, the 15-year-old boy, his brother and two additional friends were walking in Huber Woods. A parent of one of the teens was with them.
They came across a set of detachable forks, from a forklift, located off the gravel road loop at the end of the Woods Farm section of the park.
The Eatontown teen and his friend started playing on the construction equipment. The teen (name redacted) "hung from a bar that connects the forks and they fell backwards, onto (his) stomach."
The boy felt an immediate, intense pain in his chest, according to his lawsuit. The parent drove him to an ER that afternoon where it was revealed that the weight of the forklift falling on him tore his aorta in his heart.
He was bleeding internally, said the family's lawyer, and he ended up needing to have heart surgery on his aorta.
On September 30, 2024 the Eatontown family filed their lawsuit, "(Name of teen boy) vs. Huber Woods Park." The lawyer who filed the lawsuit is William Mikita , Jr., of Mikita & Roccanova personal injury law firm in Piscataway.
Mikita sued a long list of people for this incident, including Monmouth County, the Monmouth County Parks System, Huber Woods Park, Middletown Twp., the Middletown Dept. of Public Works, the Middletown Recreation Department, the town of Rumson and its DPW, the Rumson Dept. of Parks and Rec., the Monmouth Conservation Foundation, the New Jersey Division of Parks & Forestry and the state of New Jersey.
Middletown and all its Township departments requested to be dropped from the lawsuit, and a judge agreed, said Middletown Mayor Tony Perry. Middletown does not own Huber Woods Park; the park is owned, operated and maintained by the Monmouth County Park System.
The lawsuit has not been resolved. There was a court date in August to settle this case, but it did not happen, said Mikita.
Also, on Aug. 12 the lawyers for Monmouth County, the law firm of Campbell, Foley, Delano & Adams based in Wall Twp., filed a motion saying the teen's friend is partly responsible.
In a deposition, the Eatontown teen said his friend, (named redacted) "was spotting him as he attempted to do an 'L sit' on a bar structure" of the forklift. He testified his friend "grabbed his legs and the structure instantly fell on him."
The lawyers for Monmouth County now seek to add the friend as a third-party complaint, meaning they are arguing he is partly responsible.
A Monmouth County Superior Court judge has not decided yet whether the county will be allowed to add blame to the friend of the injured teen.
That will be decided Aug. 28, which is the next scheduled court date for this case.
An email to Monmouth County Parks Director Andrew Spears asking why the equipment was left out was not returned.
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