More than a dozen tow truck operators gathered in Roseburg on Friday morning to remember one of their own who was killed while clearing a disabled vehicle on Interstate 5 late Wednesday night.
Just before 11 p.m. Wednesday, Henry Alan Lichtwald, 63, of Roseburg, an employee of Walt’s Towing Company, was responding to a crash on the southbound side of I-5 near milepost 126 when police say a commercial motor vehicle collided with Lichtwald and his tow truck. Lichtwald died at the scene.
The driver of the tractor-trailer, Jagraj Singh Sidhu, 54, of Abbotsford, British Columbia, immediately pulled over and cooperated with the investigation, according to police.
Friday morning, drivers gathered at Walt’s Towing on Northeast Diamond Lake Boulevard not only to remember Lichtwald, but to also call for stronger measures to protect drivers, in addition to Oregon’s “Move Over” law.
The Move Over law in Oregon requires that motorists move to a non-adjacent lane when approaching emergency vehicles, as well as any vehicle who is stopped and displaying hazard or warning lights — or if a person is indicating distress by using flares or emergency signs.
If they can safely move over when approaching vehicles stopped along the roadway, drivers should do so. If that is not possible, drivers are required to slow down to at least 5 miles below the posted speed limit. In all cases, drivers are expected to provide as much room as possible for emergency vehicles, tow trucks and disabled vehicles.
While that law is largely observed by motorists when it comes to encountering law enforcement, tow truck operators locally and nationally feel they are left on an island, most often as the last vehicles on the scene after an accident or while assisting disabled vehicles.
“From my experience on the freeway, nobody gives a damn,” said Alan Sutton, who has been a tow truck operator for Walt’s Towing for 18 years. “As far as the ‘Move Over’ law, it doesn’t matter to me if you can’t get over. But slow your ass down.”
Joe Andrews, owner of Joe’s Towing, has been towing for 40 years. In his early years, he was clipped by the passenger side mirror of a vehicle. It could have gone much worse had he not gotten a warning from a law enforcement officer who was still on the scene of an accident.
“If he hadn’t seen that car coming, I don’t know what would have happened,” Andrews said, adding that he believes that law is largely unknown to the motoring public.
“It’s just the fact that nobody cares,” said Chris Beck of Loughead’s Automotive and Towing in Drain. “We’re all out there working and people blow by us at 80 mph. They don’t slow down. They don’t move over. It’s dangerous out there.”
In 2019, the Emergency Responder Safety Institute that 44 first responders were killed by motorists nationwide. Of those, 14 were tow truck operators. From 2011 to 2016, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says from 2011 to 2016, 191 deaths were reported in the motor vehicle towing industry.
That equates to 43 deaths per 100,000 workers, which is 15 times more than all other US private industries combined.
Teresa Allen, operations manager at Walt’s Towing, said she learned of Lichtwald’s death when an Oregon State Police trooper knocked on her door early Thursday morning.
“I think the whole neighborhood heard me screaming,” Allen said with a broken voice. “I worry about it every day, every night. My drivers go out there to help people, but they don’t have help.”
Allen shared the sentiment of other drivers that tow truck operators are often left on an island, with law enforcement or other first responders often leaving a location before disabled vehicles have been safely prepared for tow.
“They just leave us there,” Allen said. “They should never have left Henry like that. I can understand other things happen, but if it was one of them, there would have been someone keeping an eye out for them.”
Sutton was the driver originally dispatched to handle the Wednesday night call on I-5 southbound, but he was busy with a separate call.
“Henry went to handle it,” Sutton said. “He was pretty damn reliable. If I needed him, he got there as fast as he could, and if he needed me, I got there as fast as I could.”
Andrews said he can understand why sometimes the towing community gets left on an island without the protection of law enforcement or other first responders.
“There are budgetary restraints on police, and everyone is short-handed,” Andrews said. “It’s not their job to protect us. We need to protect ourselves. Unfortunately, accidents do happen.”
After the morning gathering, those drivers drove their rigs to the scene of the crash.
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