WINFIELD — Aidan Roder, a blond-haired 5-year-old, had just learned how to open the car door by himself. His parents figured it would make things easier as they worry about the boy's 7-week-old brother, Joel.

So Dad didn’t bat an eye when Aidan hopped out of the family Jeep last Thursday in Rahway River Park, just a few blocks from the family’s Union County home in Winfield.

"I assumed he’d stand there," said Frank Roder, 38, who started to pull the vehicle up a little farther.

But then Aidan began running, making a beeline for the edge of a steep embankment, and Frank panicked. He said he threw the Jeep in park — or at least he thought he did — then jumped out himself, grabbing his boy a few feet before the dropoff, which leads to the water 20 or 30 feet below.

Then the Jeep started rolling.

"Umm, Daddy?" Aidan said.

It was too late. The white SUV careened off the edge of the sandy embankment and crashed nose first into the water below. Police called in a crane to get the Jeep out, and emergency officials used special equipment to absorb some of the automotive fluids that spilled out. The ordeal went on for hours.

In fact, it’s still going on.

After acting fast, and in fear, to save his son, Roder said he was shocked when county police handed him two tickets. One was for failing to set the brake, and the other was for not providing an insurance card to police. Roder says he plans to fight the summonses in court.

For one thing, he said, the insurance card was floating somewhere inside the flooded vehicle. Roder said it was like something out of a movie when the Jeep was fished out.

View full size

"You opened the door and all the water came rushing out," he said, adding he asked police if he could provide the insurance card in a day or two. "A few minutes later, this young cop came walking over and said he was giving me these tickets."

Roder — a construction worker who is on disability following surgery on his neck — said he was fuming. His wife, Joellen, 34, also became upset when she arrived to pick up her husband and son.

While other officers on the scene were understanding, a sergeant wouldn’t budge, the couple said. Roder asked what would have happened if he’d taken an extra five seconds to make sure the Jeep was in park and Aidan had fallen off the embankment.

"He said to me ‘You’d be in jail for child endangerment,’ " recalled Roder, who sat down for an interview Tuesday in the family’s home, where he and his stay-at-home wife are raising Joel, Aidan and a 7-year-old daughter, Nadia. "That’s when I flipped out and (Joellen) started crying."

Roder said there’s even evidence that he thought he had put the vehicle in park. He usually drives a pickup that has a gear shift mounted on the steering column, but in the Jeep it’s on the center column. He said he accidentally grabbed the windshield-wiper control, yanking so hard he snapped it off.

Union County officials declined to discuss the specifics of what led to the tickets, saying it’s not their place to second-guess officers in the field. They noted that neither offense carries any points.

"As with any incident or accident that occurs in our county parks system, the Union County police conduct an investigation and issue any summonses or tickets if probable cause is found," spokesman Sebastian D’Elia said in a statement. "Once a ticket is issued, it is only the court system that has jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter and determine whether this action was warranted or not."

Roder said a lawyer who heard about his story contacted him yesterday and said he’d be happy to represent him free of charge. It’s an offer, he said, he’s likely to accept.

Related coverage:

• Man ticketed after Jeep rolls into Rahway River