Four-Car Accident in Haddon Heights Sends Two to Hospital

A four-car traffic accident on the White Horse Pike Sunday afternoon sent two people to the hospital and two vehicles to a Runnemede tow yard.

At least two of the vehicles were struck from behind at a dead stop, according to a pair of drivers at the scene. The driver of a third vehicle was transported from the scene when Patch arrived, and the apparent driver of the fourth car declined to comment.

At the front of the line were Luis Moreno and his daughter Katrina, who had been traveling west on the Pike in their blue Nissan minivan.

“We were going to church,” explained Katrina Moreno, 9.

She stood at the side of the road in a white linen dress, clutching a small, pink shawl as she gave her account of events to police.

A red light at Kings Highway had backed up traffic on the Pike almost to Green Street. Luis Moreno said he had stopped ahead of the intersection so as not to block it.

“I hear a noise,” he said. “I see in the mirror a car hit me from the back.”

That truck, a green GMC pick-up, was driven by Matt Repas of Oaklyn. Repas was returning from the Berlin Mart with his friend Zach Banner of Cherry Hill.

Repas said his vehicle was stopped behind Moreno’s when it was smacked into the back of the Nissan minivan by a powder blue GMC 3800 pick-up truck.

“We stopped and got hit from the back,” Repas said. “Didn’t really see what happened.”

Two people in the truck that hit Repas’—which had in turn been rear-ended by a dark blue Chevrolet 2500 pick-up—were transported from the scene by emergency services personnel. Neither their destination nor the extent of their injuries was immediately known.

The passengers in the Chevrolet that collided with the GMC 3800 declined to give their names at the scene. One man, seemingly in his thirties, may have been driving the vehicle. His face looked to have been bloodied by the truck’s airbag, which had been deployed.

He was traveling with a woman between 20 and 30 and an adolescent boy, neither of whom seemed to have been harmed apart from the shock. All four of them left with a friend.

“Can you ask if anybody wants to give me some money to help fix my truck?” the man said as he departed.

Members of the Haddon Heights police, fire police, and Haddon Heights fire company had the scene cleared in about 45 minutes. Police at the scene made no official comment, nor was any report immediately available. 

According to Haddon Heights fire chief Nick Scardino, who was on the scene, the company dispatched a squirt truck (21) and utility vehicle (216) to aid in the clean-up. Several firefighters scattered a grease-absorbent material on the road and shoveled up the debris.

Both the Chevrolet and the GMC 3800 pick-up were towed on separate flatbed trucks to Beaverbrook Motors of Runnemede.