Ohio: Tow-Truck Driver Killed While Doing his Job
Jack Carpenter had been towing cars for most of his life. He’d had lots of close calls out on the roads. Most wrecker drivers do. On Monday night, while hooking a woman’s broken-down car to his truck on the South Side, he became a chilling reminder of the dangers tow-truck drivers face on the job. Carpenter, 55, was on Rt. 104 near Lockbourne Road, working with his truck’s lights on, when a car drifted off the road about 9:15 p.m., Columbus police said. Carpenter was struck and killed.
He is the second tow-truck driver to be killed on the job in Columbus in the past two years. Three other cars were struck on the berm, but no one else was injured, police said. The driver who hit Carpenter had 16 oxycodone pills in his pocket, according to a police report filed in Franklin County Municipal Court.
Brian N. Spencer, 31, of 1942 S. Champion Ave. on the South Side, was arrested and charged with possession of drugs after he was treated at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center. He was in the Franklin County jail yesterday. Additional charges could be filed after toxicology tests are completed, police said.
Mark Jones, owner of A&A Towing, dispatched his friend of many years on the call 20 minutes before Carpenter was killed. “It’s a loss, I can tell you that,” Jones said. Carpenter, who lived on the North Side, had been working for Jones for the past four years but had been towing long before that. When he wasn’t towing, he loved playing cards. Everyone went home a little poorer after playing Texas hold ’em with Carpenter. He is survived by a daughter, siblings and his mother, Jones said.
Drivers at Broad & James Autocare & Towing knew how Jones and his colleagues were feeling yesterday. One of their own, William Houck, 60, was hooking up a disabled vehicle along northbound I-71 when a drunken driver drifted off the road and killed him on Sept. 29, 2012. Last year, Thomas G. Frederick was sentenced to 81/2 years in prison for Houck’s death.
Carpenter’s death “hits home,” Broad & James owner Tim Shriner said. “For everybody here, it hits especially hard.” In his business, drivers must remain alert to the speeding traffic that’s often inches away, Shriner said. “Cars are coming at you at 70-plus miles per hour,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do but do your best to get out of the way.” Jones would like to see police set up decoy trucks and ticket people who don’t move over, as required by law. And he’d like to see the fines doubled, just as they are in construction zones.
“Slow down and move over, not just for us,” Jones said. “Any time you see amber lights, man, just get over.”
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