New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was badly injured in a car accident this afternoon. He was traveling to the Governor’s mansion to a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women’s basketball team.
Gov. Jon Corzine is in the operating room receiving care for a broken leg and several broken ribs, trauma surgeon Steven Ross announced at a news conference this evening.
Corzine is “stable, in the operating room having leg fractures attended to…” said Ross. After surgery, Corzine will be transferred to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). He is considered to be in critical but stable condition.
Governor Corzine was on his way to a meeting in Princeton with Don Imus and the Rutgers University basketball team and coach, Vivian Stringer, when the unfortunate accident occurred, reports 7online.
FOX News also reports that he is in critical but stable condition, adding that someone slammed into his motorcade. I’ll be interested to hear more about how that happened.
The meeting between Imus and the Rutgers team went ahead as scheduled. It lasted three hours and was described as ‘intense’, whatever that means. I hope this story is put to bed soon. And I hope for Jon Corzine’s swift recovery.
Update [2007-4-13 0:5:59 by BooMan]: From Blue Jersey: Broken sternum. Broken collarbone. Slight fracture of lower vertabrae, 6 broken ribs – on both sides. Head laceration, but no brain or spinal cord injury. Still in surgery at least one more hour. And yes, WABC-TV is reporting an eyewitness statement: Corzine’s legs were hanging out of the window. And he was screaming “My leg! My leg!”
The NYT story said that a red pickup was driving erratically and caused a chain reaction. The person was probably drunk, but you never know with all the kooks out there.
thanks for the link. He really got beat up pretty good. I don’t think he was wearing his seat belt.
Not wearing a safety belt while travelling above about 30 miles per hour is one of the dumbest things anyone can do.
I wonder how many people who are driven in limousines wear safety belts? My guess would be that many do not, feeling that their hired help that is driving them, as well as their wealth and power, shield them from the laws of physics.
I take the part about Corzine being in a limousine back. The NY Times reports that he was in the front passenger seat of a Chevrolet Tahoe, which according to Wikipedia is a full-size SUV.
The Times mentions that Corzine “often does not” wear seatbelts. You have to be crazy to be in the front seat of a car moving on a freeway and not wear seatbelts.
What is going on here? Do drivers of full-size SUVs think that the sheer mass of the vehicle will protect them in the event of any collision?
When a quarter slipped into the passenger side seatbelt clip of my now defunct Accura Integra, thus making the passenger’s seatbelt inoperative, I immediately got it fixed, because I was not going to drive my wife around without her having a seatbelt.
I don’t think he was either, although they’re not reporting that this morning.
red pickup was driving erratically and caused a chain reaction
I do hope we get an actual, like, INVESTIGATION into this!
Just sayin’.
that sounds horrible…blessings and peace to him and his family.
It’s getting to the point where you need frickin’ body armor to get out on the roads…no wonder Hummers and other suburban assault vehicles are so popular, despite their gas-guzzler status…