My younger brother Tom passed away last week. I am grateful for my family and his community that has shown such great support and compassion. Please keep my family in your prayers.

-g

Click HERE for link to obituary.

Newspaper article reprinted below. (Purchased from the Press of Atlantic City archives)

Motorcycle crash kills Tuckerton family man

By   EMILY PREVITI Staff Writer, 609-272-7221 and ROB SPAHR Staff Writer, 609-978-2012

Published: June 28, 2008, Page in newspaper: A1

A 31-year-old father of two from Tuckerton was killed in a motorcycle accident on Route 9 late Thursday night. Thomas Hartley IV, 31, was traveling north on Route 9 alongside his friend David Rutter, 59, of Eagleswood Township, when their bikes skidded off the road for an unknown reason shortly before 10 p.m., according to State Police.

Both drivers were thrown, and the motorcycles came to rest 20 feet apart, just north of the bridge over Nacote Creek, police said.

Both men were flown to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, City Campus, in Atlantic City, where Hartley was pronounced dead at 11:54 p.m. as a result of massive head trauma, police said.

Rutter's leg and hand were severed and his lung collapsed, police said. Hospital staff refused to state his condition late Friday.

Hartley's friends and family spent Friday afternoon exchanging memories of the man they called "big hearted" at his Marine Street home in Tuckerton.

"I don't know where to start. He was a great guy who was loved by all," said Hartley's father, Thomas Hartley III.

"He'd do anything for anybody. 'You need it? You got it. And no, I don't need it back.' That's the way he was."

Thomas Hartley III said his son was a U.S. Army veteran who enjoyed the simple things in life.

"He loved to fish and he loved to hunt," Thomas Hartley III said. "And he loved his mom (Ginny). He really loved his mom."

For Hartley, riding his Harley Davidson was a means of escaping anything that was troubling him.

"He'd been riding since about the time he was 5 years old," Thomas Hartley III said. "He started with the little dirt bikes and worked his way up to his Harley."

What Hartley loved more than anything, however, were his two young children, Autumn, 7, and Thomas Hartley V, 5.

"He'd do everything with them. It didn't matter if it was T-ball or gymnastics, he was there. The last couple weeks they'd been canoeing together," Thomas Hartley III said.

When the youngest Thomas Hartley won a youth fishing tournament in Tuckerton two weeks ago, Thomas Hartley III said his son couldn't stop bragging about it.

"He was really proud of him," Thomas Hartley III said. "And I'm lucky, because Tom and I fished together just last week. We went out for a few hours and Tom had a 7- to 8-foot mako shark on his line for a couple of minutes, which was pretty exciting."

Besides being fishing partners, Thomas Hartley III and his son were also coworkers.

Hartley worked for his father's construction company, Hartley Construction, as a carpenter.

One of the most recent projects they completed was the renovation of a historic mid-1800s building on Main Street in Tuckerton.

"I'm really gonna miss him," Thomas Hartley III said.

State Police Detective John Villamil said investigators are not yet sure how fast the men were travelling, where they had been prior to the accident or whether drugs or alcohol were factors.

Thomas Hartley III said the two friends were "on their way back from being out riding together" when the accident happened.

The Atlantic County Medical Examiner's Office assisted the New Jersey State Police Accident Unit, Crime Scene Investigation and Troop C CIO at the scene of the accident, police said.

An autopsy was conducted Friday morning on Hartley, Villamil said. Results are pending.

Police ask that anyone with information about the crash contact Tuckerton State Police Barracks in Eagleswood Township at 609-296-3132.