NEW JERSEY

Fund site for DOT worker run over on Route 80

William Westhoven
@WWesthoven

A crowd-funding site has been established to help pay the medical expenses of a New Jersey Department of Transportation employee who was run over by a car last month on Route 80, and was rescued by other drivers, including a young tow-truck operator from Parsippany.

Three days after its launch, Carmine Desomma’s Recovery Fund is more than halfway to its $10,000 goal, with $5,173 pledged by 64 donors as of Monday afternoon.

“CJ has suffered extensive injuries and will have to undergo multiple surgeries,” the family wrote on the pledge page at www.gofundme.com/cjdesomma. “He is facing a very long and painful recovery. However, he is tough and has a lot of family and friends who are going to help him recover.”

According to police reports, Desomma was working on a DOT project on a Route 80 overpass in Saddle Brook when Jalil Jones, 38, of Prospect Park, driving a Chevrolet Malibu, attempted to pass the three-truck DOT debris-removal detail, which was in “slowdown mode” in the right lane to protect De Somma and other workers.

Jones moved from the center-right lane to the right lane in an “attempt to pass” the detail when he entered the shoulder, hit the concrete barrier, struck a DOT truck and hit the barrier again before hitting another DOT truck and eventually stopping, with Desomma’s body pinned underneath the Malibu, State Police Sgt. Jeffrey Flynn said.

Richard Growe, 25, was transporting a vehicle from Parsippany to Hackensack on a Powder Mill Towing flatbed truck when he came upon the accident scene. He joined a group of Good Samaritans who stopped to help several minutes before police arrived on the scene, but they were unsuccessful in trying to lift the car off the unconscious man.

“It was a mess. The guy was under the car, bleeding head to toe,” Growe said. “All broken legs, broken bones. I said, ‘Hold on, let me use my truck.’”

Growe extended a hydraulic “stinger” tow bar under the Malibu to lift it off the man, also freeing his head, which was pinned between the front passenger-side tire and a concrete barrier.

“At that point, the first state trooper got there,” Growe said. “One of the Good Samaritans took his shirt off to tie up some of the wounds, because he was bleeding everywhere.”

Other police and emergency workers arriving at the scene praised Growe for his heroic efforts.

“The trooper who responded to the scene said that (Growe’s) actions ‘were crucial to saving that man’s life,’” Flynn said.

“NJDOT is truly grateful for the heroic action not only of the other NJDOT crew members, but particularly of the actions of tow-truck driver Richard Growe and the other two Good Samaritans — a volunteer EMT and a former fireman — who came to the aid of an NJDOT worker after he was struck by a car on I-80,” DOT spokesman Stephen Schapiro said. “Their quick action helped free the injured worker from underneath the car, expediting the care he received.”

Growe said Desomma’s family reached out on social media to thank him. Desomma initially had been placed in a medically-induced coma to aid the healing process, they told him.

Now, the family is reaching out to the public for additional assistance.

“Carmine was just doing his job,” donor Andrew Tunnard wrote on the site. “He is 28 and suffered extensive injuries. Life can change quickly.”

Staff Writer William Westhoven: 973-917-9242; wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com.