The Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the family of a tow truck operator killed while servicing a stranded motorist are seeking information that could help identify or locate the tractor-trailer truck involved in the fatal hit-and-run on Interstate 10 between Benson and Vail early Saturday morning.
Alex Hayes died at the scene shortly after 3 a.m. while changing a tire for a motorist in the righthand emergency shoulder of westbound I-10 at milepost 289 near Marsh Station Road. Hayes, 21, was taking the lug nuts off the disabled vehicle when a passing commercial truck drove into the right emergency shoulder and struck the tow truck operator, according to DPS spokesman Raul Garcia.
“The commercial truck did not stop,” Garcia said Monday. “The tow truck driver sustained fatal injuries.” The stranded motorist was not injured, Garcia reported, adding that the death is under investigation. DPS has not named the company Hayes was working for at the time.
Anyone with information about the accident is asked to contact a local law enforcement agency and request to be connected to a DPS dispatcher. It is possible the tractor-trailer truck has body damage on its passenger side or on the front right underbody.
Hayes’ family is also asking for the driver or any witnesses to come forward.
“Our family just wants to know what happened,” Hayes’ uncle Charles Kendrick said Sunday. “Right now, we are in the dark about what happened, we have very little information and I think at this point we just want to know what happened.”
Arizona law requires any driver involved in an accident to stop at the scene. The state also has a law statute commonly referred to as the “Move Over Law” which requires motorists to move over one lane – or slow down if it isn’t safe to change lanes – when driving by any vehicle with flashing lights that is pulled to the side of a roadway.
The purpose of the law is to ensure a safer environment for drivers both on and off the roadway. Unfortunately, Hayes death was the second on-duty fatality this month involving a tow truck operator.
On Aug. 5, David Michael Pope of Catalina Towing & Recovery died of injuries sustained in a crash. The 28-year-old Pope is survived by his wife, two children, and an unborn daughter.
Pope’s obituary notes he worked for Cataline Towing for nearly two years and was set to begin a new career next month with the Arizona Department of Corrections. An investigation into Pope’s death is ongoing, and is routine when a tow truck is involved.
According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), a tow truck operator is killed every six days in the U.S. In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 42.9 tow truck operators are killed per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, while all other industries have a combined fatality rate of only 2.9 deaths per full-time equivalent workers.
