4th Lawsuit Filed In Fatal Megabus Crash On NJ Turnpike

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — Another lawsuit has now been filed in the 2022 Megabus crash on the New Jersey Turnpike, where two people were killed and the driver reportedly lost his leg.

The latest lawsuit was filed Jan. 24 in Middlesex County Superior Court by a woman named Kimberly Clay, a Manhattan resident who was a passenger on the bus. Her lawsuit is now the fourth related to that fatal 2022 crash, and all the lawsuits were filed against Megabus/Coach USA.

Megabus is owned by Coach USA.

Clay said she was severely injured in the crash. In her lawsuit, she said the driver of the double-decker bus was speeding.

The driver, Eugene Naughton, a 56-year-old Westville, NY resident, lost his leg in the crash, NJ.com reported. He has filed his own lawsuit against Megabus/Coach USA: He says he lost control of the bus when one of its tires blew out. He says Megabus/Coach USA failed to do routine maintenance of the bus.

The double-decker bus crashed on the New Jersey Turnpike as it ran through Woodbridge at 6:53 p.m. on Aug. 9, a balmy Tuesday evening in mid-summer.

Police say the driver of the bus lost control of the double-decker bus and collided with a Ford F-150 pickup truck, causing the bus to veer off the Turnpike. The bus went off the road near the entrance ramp to the Thomas Edison service area in Woodbridge, and overturned on its side.

A man who pulled over to help, Gary Lee Fortner, a 30-year-old Atlanta resident, told Patch he will never forget the horror he witnessed that evening:

"It was like an apocalypse, a nightmare. There was smoke all around, people walking around bleeding, with their arms broken, blood everywhere. It was something I will never be able to get out of my mind. I and other people just ran into the bus and started pulling people out. We spent the next 45 minutes pulling people out of the bus. What we saw, I can't even say. People had been cut to the bone; there were ligaments and bones showing. One woman, I could see her whole arm had been cut to the bone. People were covered in blood."

"One elderly man, it's hard to say, but he (suffered significant head trauma). He was conscious and we helped him off the bus, but he had no idea what was going on. He kept asking me what had happened. I will never get it out of my mind."

"All the passengers told us they had been asleep. They were just asleep headed to Philly and then boom, your whole life changes in an instant," he said.

Fortner said people were trapped in their seats, screaming for help. He said it appeared like the passengers on the top level of the bus had suffered the most severe injuries.

Some of the injured and bleeding were walking around the bus in a daze, and Fortner said he and others tried to get them water and sit with them. Other people were taking off their shirts and wrapping them around the wounded to control the bleeding until EMTs got there. Many people were uncontrollably crying, he said.

It was two female passengers who were killed: Cheryl Johnson, 59, of the Bronx, who was pronounced deceased on the scene. Passenger Cecilia Kiyanitza, 66, of Woodbury, NJ was airlifted to an area hospital where she later died.

The double-decker Megabus was en route to Philadelphia when it crashed; it had departed from 34th Street in New York City.

"This was the largest incident I've ever responded to, just in terms of the volume of people, and I've responded to a lot of accidents on the Turnpike," said Port Reading fire captain Evan Douglas. "There were significant trauma injuries in the bus."

Fortner said he and others "just pulled out as many people as we could."

Eyewitness To Fatal NJ Turnpike Megabus Crash Recounts 'Nightmare' (Aug. 10, 2022)

Death Toll Rises To 2 In NJ Turnpike Megabus Crash (Aug. 9, 2022)