At first the chase must have seemed like a scene out of an action movie. The police were in hot pursuit of a suspect on a speeding motorcycle twisting and weaving through the bustling streets of Buffalo, New York. And then tragedy struck: A graduating high school senior, just 18 years old, was later killed during this high-speed chase when he hit another car.

The fatal motorcycle accident happened during the morning rush hour just as people were on their way to school and work. The teen was pulled over after the police observed that he was driving without a rear license plate on the back of the motorcycle.

A New York sanitation worker was crushed between two trucks in Brooklyn. The man was caught between the two vehicles and suffered a broken right arm and leg. His left leg was crushed above the knee and almost required amputation. He was taken to the hospital where he was stabilized. The truck accident took place in the early morning.

The other vehicle involved in the accident was a Budget rental truck driven by another man. The rental truck slammed into the sanitation worker who was loading trash into the back of the garbage truck on East 4th Street, near Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn.

A runaway truck trailer crashed into a minivan in central New York, killing seven. The driver of the minivan tried unsuccessfully to avoid the trailer, which was carrying crushed cars, as it careened across a two-lane highway in upstate Tuxton, New York. The truck accident killed four young children and three adults in their early 20s.

There was only one survivor in the van, and the driver and passenger in the truck were unharmed.

Distinguished reporter Tim Fleischer has covered a lot of tragic events in his long career, among them, the bombing of the Pan Am Flight and the explosion of TWA Flight 800. He even harkens back to the terrorist taking of the infamous Achille Lauro, where a New York man was murdered and tossed overboard. Then, of course, he was there for the bombing of the World Trade Center and the explosion of the ill-fated Space Shuttle Challenger.

No experience, however, can make a reporter immune to profound emotions when it comes to a senselesstruck accident that snares the life of an outstanding young man on what should have been a remarkable day of happiness.