VERNON — Thomas Hayes heard the Jeep plunging down the mountain before he saw it. Hayes said he had dropped off his 16-year-old son at Minerals Golf Resort on Saturday afternoon and was about to drive away when he heard a "crunching noise." Glancing up, Hayes spotted the 2007 Jeep Wrangler — with a married couple from Vernon and their 6-year-old son inside — beginning its terrifying, unfathomable descent down the steepest of Mountain Creek's 42 ski trails.

By ROB JENNINGS

rjennings@njherald.com

VERNON — Thomas Hayes heard the Jeep plunging down the mountain before he saw it.

Hayes said he had dropped off his 16-year-old son at Minerals Golf Resort on Saturday afternoon and was about to drive away when he heard a "crunching noise."

Glancing up, Hayes spotted the 2007 Jeep Wrangler — with a married couple from Vernon and their 6-year-old son inside — beginning its terrifying, unfathomable descent down the steepest of Mountain Creek's 42 ski trails.

"I must have seen this thing tumble 20 times in the air," Hayes, 57, a married father of two from Hamburg, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

"It was spinning three or four times in the air, before it came down and went up again," Hayes recounted.

Hayes later rescued the boy, who was thrown from the Jeep, and helped guide rescuers to the wreck — evading a large bear along the way.

All three family members survived the crash, which drew attention well beyond Vernon.

The driver — Michael Fertitta, 39 — was the most seriously hurt. He was listed in serious condition Tuesday at Morristown Medical Center, hospital spokesman Rob Seman said.

Seman, retracting an earlier statement that the boy had been discharged, said he remained hospitalized but in good condition.

Kelly Fertitta was discharged from the hospital on Monday, Seman said.

The trail where the crash occurred was cleared as part of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline project and is owned by the state Department of Environmental Protection, which prohibits motorized

vehicles.

Sussex County First Assistant Prosecutor Greg Mueller said an investigation is ongoing and no charges had been filed.

"The investigation will take a few more days to complete," said Mueller, who confirmed that Michael Fertitta is a detective with the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office.

"Our office, in conjunction with Vernon Township, will make a decision at the conclusion regarding any criminal charges," Mueller said.

Hayes, owner of Lakeside Tire and Auto Center in Hopatcong, was back on the job Tuesday.

"I'm happy I was able to help," Hayes said.

Vernon Police Lt. Steve Moran, on Monday, said that an eyewitness from the golf resort rescued the boy. Moran did not identify Hayes by name, but said he did a "great job."

Hayes, who stands nearly 6 feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds, was not dressed for a perilous scramble up the mountain.

"I had just sneakers on, flat sneakers which were terrible running uphill. It was like ice skating on weeds," Hayes said.

The wreck was concealed by trees and brush, so Hayes was not exactly sure when it landed.

From the Minerals parking lot, he began scrambling toward some boulders, about 300 yards away, which he correctly guessed had halted the Jeep.

As if getting to the site was not sufficiently challenging, Hayes first had to evade a large bear, near what turned out to be the crash site.

"I stood my ground. He snorted a couple of times. I stayed calm. He just moved a couple of feet, then started going past me," Hayes said.

Soon after, Hayes spotted the mangled Jeep, and Michael Fertitta's arm hanging out of the door. He was unconscious.

"I'm yelling, ‘Are you OK?' I'm standing right next to him," Hayes said.

Though Hayes could not free him, he knew Fertitta was alive.

"I could just hear him, sitting there, breathing away — just deep, gurgling breathing. I assumed he broke his ribs," Hayes said.

Hayes' next concern was checking for a possible fuel leak, an instinctive response from the 32-year auto mechanic.

Finding no issue there, Hayes turned his attention to Kelly Fertitta, who had escaped the Jeep and was about 25 yards away and heading up the mountain.

"She's facing away from me, moving," he recalled.

"Finally I catch up to her and say, ‘Will you just stop?' "

Hayes said he thought he heard Kelly Fertitta say she was looking for her phone. He told her not to worry about it.

She corrected him.

"She said, ‘Not my phone. My son,' " he said.

Hayes, whose older son is 21, was horrified. There was no sign of the boy.

"I looked around the car, in the boulders, in the rocks. I can't find nothing. I'm looking everywhere," he said.

He clambered up the trail, with Kelly Fertitta remaining behind. She told him her son's name, which he yelled out, again and again, but received no response.

"All of a sudden," he said, "I see something blue."

The boy, as Hayes described him, was "laying face down in the sticker bushes," on an exceptionally steep portion of the trail.

"The only thing that stopped him was, his whole body was stuck under the sticker bushes," he said.

Hayes said he touched the boy's feet and yelled out his name, hoping for a response.

"The only thing I did was jiggle his leg, to wake him up, to see if he was alive," Hayes said.

Then the boy reacted.

"The next thing I heard was a real big gasp of air," Hayes said.

"He did all the moving himself. He jumped at me," Hayes added, explaining that he took care not to aggravate any injuries.

Hayes said he was able to take the boy, who was semi-conscious, back down toward the Jeep, which was 100 yards farther down the trail.

"He was getting better and more responsive," Hayes said.

At one point, the boy looked at him and said, "You're not my daddy," Hayes recalled.

The boy's mother, relieved, did not want her son to come too close.

"She said, ‘Don't bring him over by me — I think I broke my jaw and I don't want to scare him,' " Hayes said.

By that time, police helicopters were in the vicinity.

Hayes helped take the boy to a waiting ambulance, and guided rescuers to the wreck.

"I was holding this little kid like he was mine," Hayes said.

Later that night, in bed, "I woke up a few times thinking about it," he said.

On Monday, Hayes contacted Vernon police, seeking an update on the 6-year-old's recovery.

"The boy you got is fine," he said he was told.

Mueller, noting "just the mere fact of where this accident occurred," described it as a "very dangerous event."

"It raises significant questions that could trigger liability," Mueller said.

News accounts of the widely publicized crash have resulted in harsh Internet commentaries directed at the father.

Hayes, on that topic, said people should withhold judgment.

"It's past the point. It happened," Hayes said.

"Everybody makes mistakes. You read these things and think, these people — they never did anything wrong?"