Serious Injury Semi-Truck Wreck in West Milford

On April 9, 2025, a semi-truck carrying 7,000 gallons of septic waste overturned in a collision that seriously injured two people.

The truck driver was seriously injured in the crash, the West Milford Fire Marshal’s Office said. Emergency crews contained a spill of septic waste along with oil and other vehicle fluids that leaked from the wreckage.

Multiple fire companies and hazardous materials teams responded to the scene, where crews worked for hours to offload the damaged tanker and safely secure the scene.

No other details were available.

Immediate Trauma Injuries in Truck Crashes

Between 2010 and 2021, the number of large truck crashes increased a staggering 51 percent. Not coincidentally, during that decade-plus, large trucks got bigger than ever, and large truck drivers became more inexperienced than ever.

Consumer good consumption increased significantly during the 2010s. Almost every item on almost every shelf in America, from tiny Kleenex boxes to large SUVs, spends some time on a large truck. Semi-truck traffic is especially high in New Jersey and other regional transportation hubs.

At the same time, the truck driver shortage grew from a minor annoyance to crisis proportions. Driverless trucks may someday fill in the gap. But for now, men and women with little experience behind the wheel now drive semi-trucks that are bigger, faster, and heavier than ever.

The high number of large truck crashes in New Jersey has caused a high number of serious truck crash trauma injuries, such as:

• Head Injuries: The force of a wreck, as opposed to a trauma impact, often causes head injuries in truck crash cases. Upon impact, the victim’s head snaps back and forth, causing the brain to slam against the insides of the skull. The resulting brain injuries are usually permanent. Dead brain cells don’t regenerate.
• Serious Burns: Most large trucks carry hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel, a chemical that burns at almost the same temperature as jet fuel. Even brief contact with such hot flames usually causes serious burns. Since many victims are pinned underneath flaming trucks, their burns are often catastrophic.
• Broken Bones: Normally, broken bones are not life threatening. But they’re always life altering and usually permanent. Since doctors typically use metal parts to reconstruct shattered bones, physical therapy is much longer, more difficult, and more expensive. Furthermore, broken bones normally permanently impair mobility and increase the likelihood of future injuries.

New Jersey has one of the highest per diem hospital costs in the nation, and the average burn injury stay exceeds thirty days. So, many truck crash victims are saddled with medical bills they cannot possibly pay.

A Central Jersey personal injury lawyer normally refers truck crash victims to doctors who focus on these catastrophic injuries. In other words, when truck crash victims partner with doctors, they get the treatment they need, not the treatment they can afford of the treatment an insurance adjuster is willing to pay for.

Long-Term Diseases in Truck Crashes

Immediate trauma injuries are the most common truck crash injuries. But they aren’t the only serious injuries these wrecks cause.

Many large trucks carry septic waste and other hazardous waste. Other trucks haul thousands of gallons of dangerous chemicals. When these toxic substances leak after the tank is ruptured, or even cracked, in a collision, toxic fumes float through the air, causing a wide range of health problems.

Respiratory issues may be the best example. Normally, inhaled toxic fumes burn narrow airways in the lungs. Many of these airways aren’t much wider than the tip of a pencil. The resulting scar tissue cuts off these airways. So, the victims constantly have trouble breathing, even while resting.

Emergency responders usually wear PPE (personal protective equipment), such as facemasks, when they clean up large truck crash spills. But news reporters, curious onlookers, and other such people are completely unprotected.

Furthermore, most toxic particles are only slightly heavier than air. So, they often float for several hours before they land in childrens’ playgrounds and other such areas.

The long-term effects of toxic particles, and other long-term disease, creates significant issues for a South Jersey personal injury lawyer.

Disease latency period is a good example. Toxic exposure diseases often take decades to develop. By the time the victims experience symptoms and see doctors, the two-year statute of limitations in personal injury cases has elapsed.

The discovery rule protects these victims in these cases. A North Jersey personal injury lawyer has two years from the illness discovery date, not two years after an accident, to file a legal claim. Additionally, most courts extend the time even further, if the victim cannot immediately connect a respiratory or other illness to a truck crash or other negligence event.

Proof Issues in Truck Crashes

Many large truck crashes have proof issues. Like the crash in the above story, most large truck wrecks happen so quickly that eyewitness evidence is either unavailable or unreliable (usually because the witness is potentially biased).

Victims must have enough evidence to prove negligence, or a lack of care, by a preponderance of the evidence, or more likely than not, to receive compensation for their injuries. Fortunately, there’s a big difference between a no-evidence case and a no-apparent-evidence case.

An Event Data Recorder is standard equipment on all large trucks. 95 percent of passenger vehicles currently on the road contain these gadgets as well. EDRs are similar to commercial jet black box flight data recorders in many ways.

Airplane crash investigators often use black box data to piece together the events leading up to the crash. A Central Jersey personal injury lawyer does much the same thing with EDR information. 

This information usually includes data like vehicle speed, steering angle, brake application, and other data that directly relates to a vehicle crash cause.

Large truck EDRs are very sophisticated devices which are designed to survive even the most catastrophic crashes. This advanced design means that a Morris County personal injury lawyer needs more than a laptop and a screwdriver to access, review, and download EDR data. 

Other electronic evidence, such as surveillance camera footage and, in a fatigued driver case, an Electronic Logging Device, may be relevant as well.

Assuming the device was working correctly, a surveillance camera is like an eyewitness who’s never wrong or biased. An ELD, which is attached to a truck’s drivetrain, accurately records the driver’s HOS (hours of service).

We mentioned the size and need for trucks above. As a result, truck drivers are under extreme pressure to stay behind the wheel as long as possible. Driving after eighteen consecutive awake hours is like driving with a .05 BAC level, which is above the legal limit for commercial drivers in New Jersey.

Reach Out to a Thorough Bergen County Lawyer

Injury victims are entitled to significant compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer in Newark, contact CourtLaw. The sooner you reach out to us, the sooner we start working for you.