UPDATE: Two Men Identified After Pickup Truck Falls Through Toms River Ice; Dog Dies

By Karen Wall (Patch Staff); with additional reporting by Patricia A. Miller (Patch Staff)

>>UPDATE: Cops: Man Won’t Be Charged In Pickup Truck Sinking In Toms River, Killing Dog

If authorities charge the two Toms River men who were associated with a pickup truck that broke through the ice on the Toms River in Pine Beach Sunday, sparking a search-and-rescue operation and killing a dog, they could face significant penalties.

Andrew Mayer, 27, and Daniel Jolly, 25, both of Toms River, turned themselves into police Sunday afternoon, New Jersey State Police Sgt. First Class Gregory Williams said. Mayer was the driver, he said, and Jolly, the passenger, got out before the truck went onto the ice.

Pine Beach police chief Reece Fisher referred all questions about the incident to the New Jersey State Police.

“They may be charging people as a result of the incident out on the ice,” Fisher said. “Any press questions or information has to come from them. We did accomodate the launch of the New Jersey State Police boats to the area.”

Williams said the two, who turned themselves in to Toms River police, were being interviewed by detectives.

“No charges have been filed but this is an active investigation,” Williams said.

The incident began early Sunday morning when a caller to the Toms River Police Department reported seeing a vehicle on the ice near Gladney Avenue. Toms River police who responded saw the vehicle’s headlight and taillights, and then saw them disappear, at which point they called in search-and-rescue personnel, said Ralph Stocco, spokesman for the Toms River Police Department.

The search, which included a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter, continued for several hours before the pickup truck was located, submerged about 100 yards off Motor Road the Pine Beach side of the river.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard website, the penalties for issuing a false distress call as a boater include 6 years in prison, a $250,000 criminal fine, a $5,000 civil fine, and reimbursing the U.S. Coast Guard for the cost of performing the search. The Coast Guard charges from $8,200 to $21,200 per hour depending on which helicopter was involved in the search, according to the Coast Guard website.

>>Related stories: UPDATE: Black Ice, Accidents, Speed Restrictions, Airport Delays As New Jersey Battles Storm Impact

There were no human deaths in the incident. Williams said the dog that died, a boxer, was removed from the submerged truck, which was found about 100 yards from shore on the Pine Beach side near Windy Cove by a Coast Guard helicopter.

The search for the pickup truck drew onlookers to every open access point along the Toms River, many of whom had been awakened during the night by the sound of explosions and then were kept awake by the noise of the Coast Guard helicopter searching for the truck.

Jamie O’Connor, 11, and Madelyn Lauria, 11, were having a sleepover at Jamie’s home when they heard an explosion and saw a bright light. It wasn’t long before they heard the helicopter that was circling the river.

“It was really loud,” said Jamie, who stood with her mother and Madelyn at a street end in Pine Beach trying to watch the search-and-recovery operation. Jamie’s mother, who declined to give her name, said there were two explosions, one at 12:25 and a second at 12:40 a.m. The O’Connors live on the north side of Route 37, but drove down to see what happened.

Jamie O’Connor’s mother said she remembers in the 1970s, when the river and Barnegat Bay froze so solidly that people drove on the river, and residents would walk and ice skate on the bay. In recent years, however, neither the river nor the bay have frozen completely, and there have been ice rescues, including the one Friday of an ice boater whose boat broke through the ice in Berkeley Township.

The explosions were heard and reported by a number of people, and though they occurred about the same time as the truck going onto the ice, officials have not said the two are related.

The incident began in the early hours of Sunday morning, when Toms River police received a report of a vehicle on the ice on the Toms River near Gladney Avenue, doing “donuts.”

Toms River Police Department spokesman Ralph Stocco said Toms River police were notified about 12:15 a.m. and responded, where they saw the truck on the ice. The truck’s headlights and brake lights could by seen by the officers from the shoreline, Stocco said, as the truck headed south and west on the river. But at some point the police officers could no longer see the lights, and called in search teams from the State Police and the U.S. Coast Guard, Stocco said. Firefighters from Toms River and Island Heights also responded, and personnel in ice suits walked on the frozen river to locate the truck, which was located about 10:20 a.m. by the Coast Guard.

Adele Lee of the Money Island section of Toms River and her friend, Emily Pugliese of Ocean Gate, stood at a street end in Beachwood that offered a clear view of the parking lot at Windy Cove, where State Police and other rescue personnel were staging.

As she watched one of the state police airboats on the water, she said her sister awakened her about 12:30 because of the explosions, but the noise from the helicopter was even louder.

“They were so low you could see all the lights,” Lee said, as the helicopter searched every cove along the north side of the river.

“My house was rattling,” Pugliese said.

Lee said she and Pugliese had stopped farther east along the river and from that vantage point could see the circles in the snow where the pickup had done donuts on the ice.

“You could see big rings,” Lee said. “They were as clear as day,” Pugliese said.

Where exactly the pickup truck got onto the ice remained unclear Sunday evening. There was a report the truck got on the ice in Island Heights, where the Toms River narrows before it spills into Barnegat Bay, but that information could not be confirmed.

With snow falling steadily, State Police sent the first air boat out on the ice a little after noon, and after making a big sweep it sat on the ice in one spot for several minutes before returning to shore. An hour or so later, the boat went out again, this time with a diver in an ice suit, then stopping at the spot it had paused at the first time, which from the shore appeared to be where the truck had gone through the ice.

The rate of snow had increased by that point, partially obscuring what the diver was doing, but Williams confirmed the diver was marking the truck for later removal, and said the dog’s body was removed as well.

A few minutes later a second air boat launched onto the ice, taking a different path across the ice, and from a distance it appeared to following a path on the ice. After making a wide sweep, it returned to the dock. The other boat returned to the dock a short time later, where it was met by state police crime scene photographers.

Subscribe to the Patch free daily newsletter for more local news, and breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox, by clicking here.

(Photos: 1. An air boat returns to the dock in Pine Beach after the body of a dog was retrieved from a pickup truck that broke through the ice Sunday. 2. The air boat on the ice near the pickup truck. 3. State Police and rescue personnel talk at Windy Cove in Pine Beach. 4. A second New Jersey State Police air boat heads out as the first works to mark the pickup truck and retrieve the dog. 5. The Coast Guard helicopter flies over the Toms River late Sunday morning searching for the pickup truck. 6. A view from the Coast Guard helicopter of where the truck broke through. Credits: 1-4, by Karen Wall; 5. Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard. 6. Coast Guard helicopter photo by Russ Corby, former mayor of Pine Beach.)

Other Patch stories:

• iPhone Explodes In Man’s Pocket In New Jersey
• Extra Cheese, Topped With Drugs: Pizza Guy Was High On Delivery, Had Heroin and Crack, Cops Say
• Baby Ingested Heroin in Home; Man Faces Prison Time