A 70-year-old Hawthorne man was trapped inside his car Thursday evening after a tree came crashing down on Route 208 in Wyckoff, striking his vehicle as storms rolled through the region. The man was driving a 2021 Subaru northbound near Ewing Avenue around 5:30 p.m. when the tree fell onto the car's roof, pinning him behind the wheel.
According to Daily Voice, which cited Wyckoff Police Lt. Joseph Soto, officers arrived to find the driver conscious and alert but unable to free himself from the wreckage. Firefighters from the Wyckoff Fire Department worked to extricate him, and the Wyckoff Volunteer Ambulance Corps then transported him to a local hospital. Soto said his injuries were considered non-life-threatening.
Northbound Lanes Shut Down For Hours
The tree strike forced a lengthy closure on one of Bergen County's busiest commuter corridors. Northbound lanes of Route 208 were closed for approximately two hours while crews investigated and cleared the scene, per the same account. The New Jersey Department of Transportation and the Bergen County Sheriff's Office both assisted at the location as storms continued to move through the area.
The exact cause of the tree's fall was not detailed in the report, and no information was provided about the tree's condition beforehand. The driver's name and the hospital that treated him were also not disclosed.
Not The First Time A Tree Has Come Down On This Stretch
Thursday's crash is not the only time a falling tree has struck a vehicle on Route 208 in Wyckoff in recent memory. Back in July, Patch reported that two people traveling south on the highway in a Toyota Highlander during a severe storm were struck by a falling tree, leaving a 39-year-old Passaic woman with cuts to her legs from broken glass. She was also taken to the hospital by the Wyckoff Ambulance Corps.
Earlier in the year, a downed tree caused a different kind of disruption on the same highway. Daily Voice reported that a tree came down on the southbound side near Grandview Avenue around 11:25 a.m. on May 2, closing one of the road's two lanes and backing up traffic to Cedar Hill Avenue. And storm records stretch back further still: a Daily Voice report on the Aug. 4, 2020 storm listed a tree falling onto a car with minor injuries at Ewing Avenue and Grandview Terrace in Wyckoff, not far from Thursday's incident.
Whether these episodes reflect any broader pattern along the corridor has not been established, but each has added to a string of storm-related headaches for drivers passing through Wyckoff on Route 208.
