6/9/2016
Reed Hollinshead
ITD Communication
208-334-8881
reed.hollinshead@itd.idaho.gov
Monk's moment 20 years ago still shaping work-zone safety habits today
BOISE - The strongest beliefs are often forged in life-threatening experiences, and typically do not fade with the passing of time. Such is the case for Troy Monk, who nearly became a statistic on a stretch of U.S. 26 outside of Rigby 20 years ago this summer.
It is clear that the impact of that event is as palpable for Monk today as it was in 1996.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Click here to watch Monk's video.
________________________________________________________________________________
It was a case of distracted driving before distracted driving was even identified as a risky driving behavior.
Safety involves more than just motorists. It extends to bicyclists, pedestrians, motorcyclists, and to highway workers working alongside traffic to make improvements to the roadway system so vital to drivers and the state’s commerce.
There have been more than 2,000 crashes in Idaho work zones in the last five years (2010-2014), accounting for nine driver fatalities. Four highway workers have been injured as a result. Nationally, more than 700 people are killed and 37,000 injured each year in crashes in highway work zones.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Click here for work zone safety fact sheets from ITD.______________________________________________________________________________
On Aug. 22, 1996, Monk was nearly one of those.
Foreshadowing
“We were building a turnout between the Clark Hill rest area and the Heise turnoff, and I was running the road grader. I began helping one of my co-workers learn to run the grader. After he got comfortable with the operation, I took over one end of the flagging operation,” Monk recalled.
On that day, he had seen several cars driving dangerously. “People get mesmerized out there,” he said. “They don’t pay attention.”
About an hour later, it happened.
Deadly weapon traveling at 67 mph
Monk, then a 31-year-old maintenance driver for the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) District 6 office in eastern Idaho, had just stopped a car on the highway to allow equipment to move in and out at the turnaround for maintenance trucks and equipment between Ririe and Swan Valley.
Just as he stepped off the road to allow the car to pass, another vehicle came into view. The police told Monk the college-age girl who was driving had been playing with her radio, looked up and saw the stationary vehicle in the road. She swerved off the road to avoid hitting the stopped car.
She slammed into Monk instead.
Blunt-force trauma
The force of the impact knocked Monk out of his high-top tennis shoes. He was just a few feet from being a repeat victim. “Before she was able to stop, the driver almost ran back over me 68 feet from where I had been standing,” he said.
Although Monk didn’t lose consciousness, things got a little fuzzy. He thinks, but does not exactly know, if he was airborne for those 68 feet. He does, however, vividly recall a co-worker yelling, “Oh my God, he’s alive — he’s moving.”
He suffered a broken shoulder, crushed collarbone, broken left arm, and multiple fractures of his left leg. She hit Monk flush, shattering her windshield.
The only thing that likely saved Monk was the car’s design — it had a scooped-out front end, a feature of the older-model Saabs.
“That’s one of the only reasons I am still alive,” Monk said. “It busted up my left side pretty badly. I have a permanent plate in my left arm, and a permanent rod through my left leg.”
Although “Road Work” and “Prepare to Stop” signs were posted, the driver who hit Monk later told police she never saw them. The investigation showed that signs had been set up to warn drivers a full three-quarters of a mile prior to the site of the crash.
“The signs were set up correctly, visibly,” said Monk. “There was a slight bend in the road – otherwise I might have seen her coming.”
“I remember everything getting blurry, which they figure is when I was flying through the air,” he said. “I didn’t hear anything, didn’t feel anything, but I saw it,” Monk recalls. “Everything else sort of shut down.”
Life Flight was called in to take Monk to the nearest hospital.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Click here for Photo 1and Photo 2 of Monk in the hospital after the crash.
____________________________________________________________________________
Monk spent two weeks in the hospital and the next five months in a hospital bed at home. “It was over a year before I was out of a wheelchair, and didn’t need to use crutches or a cane,” Monk explained.
Monk and his wife had just adopted a baby girl. “I had to watch her take her first steps from that hospital bed,” he says wistfully. “That was the hardest part – not being able to play with her.” She was just six months old at the time of the incident.
“Having an infant take her first steps without me being a part of it, that was hard. That’s something I hold onto, even today. It’s hard even 20 years later to deal with.”
When he returned to work in the summer of 1997, more of those difficult times awaited.
New habits, old concerns
“The first time I was released to return to maintenance, I was put on flagging and a vehicle hit the brakes and slid…I almost passed out,” he recalled.
“Ever since this incident, safety is my priority,” explained Monk.
“To this day on ALL my projects, safety is first. I always look for ways to make the work zone safer.” Monk now works for the design-construction Team A in District 6.
Monk said he still thinks of that 1996 event often. “It was life-changing in many ways.”
“I actually reference this event regularly when dealing with contractors,” said Monk. “They need to be able to prepare for any situation. And realize that their job is not as important as their life.”
“Every one of us have families to go home to," he said. "We’re not here to inconvenience anybody. We’re here to give a good product at a good price. That’s our whole purpose for being out here. If we can’t go home to our families, what have we served?”
“If there is one thing I could say to the public as they are driving through our work zones, it is to pay attention,” Monk added. “Please remember that we’re your neighbors, we’re your friends. Just please put down any distractions, be patient and pay attention when you come through.
"These guys have families too, and we all want to go home when the day is over.”
Distracted driving is a major problem in Idaho. In the last five years, crashes classified as "distracted" — caused by inattention or a distraction in the vehicle — number more than 25,000. There have been more than 220 deaths caused by distracted driving in Idaho in that same period.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Click here for picture of Monk today.
________________________________________________________________________________