September October 2017

26 American Traffic Safety Services Association FOUNDATION NEWS It is news no one wishes to receive and a knock on the door no one wants to answer. Being informed that a family member was killed in an incident while on the job is a fear of many people with a relative, spouse or friend who is a roadway worker. These women and men are expertly trained. There are advancements in safety technology to prevent crashes or other incidents at work sites but no matter how much precaution is taken there is always the chance that something can go wrong—just as it did in Sarasota, Florida on Nov. 23, the evening before Thanksgiving Day, in 2011. Lyndsay Sutton was in her junior year of high school and living in Daytona Beach with her mother. She was getting ready to celebrate her seventeenth birthday, which was only a week away. Her father, Steve Morgan, had recently moved from upstate New York to Florida so he could be closer to her. Sutton planned on living with her father in Fort Meyers while she attended college at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU). “The night of the crash my dad took a shift because my birthday was coming up and he needed the money to come see me,” Sutton said. Morgan was part of a team of roadway workers, who were setting up a temporary work zone to contain a crash site along the median of a roadway. Lyndsay said her father asked a state trooper at the scene of the crash if there was anything else he and the work crew could do to assist police. The state trooper requested Morgan increase the space between the cones outlining the perimeter of the work zone, which Morgan was in the process of doing when an 18-year-old motorist lost control of his vehicle, entering the temporary work zone and striking and killing Morgan.” The first person to be notified of Morgan’s death was his sister, Margo Storie, who lived in New York. Then around 11:30 p.m. is when a state trooper came to my house and notified me of the crash. After that, I was in shock and a wreck but my family organized for me to come up to New York so I could be with family and so we could have the memorial service there so that was really good, to just be with family.” When Sutton returned to Florida, the company that her father worked for, DBi Services, had set up a memorial service as well. Following the services, Sutton said “there were highs and lows and it took awhile to really sink in,” but with a lot of family support and structure, she was able to direct her focus on selecting and applying to colleges. “FGCU was still in the back of my mind because that was me and my dad’s plan,” Sutton said. Sutton said FGCU was the first college she was accepted to and she and her family went to visit the campus. “Once I saw it, I knew it was where I was supposed to be,” Sutton said. Sutton moved to Fort Myers to attend FGCU. With the support she received from her family and from DBi Services, Sutton said she felt she overcame much of the grief she felt following her father’s death. “Obviously it’s not an easy thing to do, but I definitely had a great support team and then just fulfilling me and my dad’s dream was enough to pull me through it,” Sutton said. “I’m the first one in my family to go to college and that was so important to my dad.” Growing up with financial hardships, Sutton said money for tuition was always a worry in her mind so she began applying to scholarships. She heard about the Roadway Worker Memorial Scholarship program through DBi’s Safety Manager, Jim Conroy, who was also the safety manager at the time of the crash Morgan was killed in. Conroy told Sutton and her family about the scholarship program and about how The Foundation provides financial assistance to college for dependents of roadway workers killed or permanently disabled in a roadway work zone. Roadway Worker Memorial Scholarship recipient honors father through success Lyndsay Sutton fulfills her and father’s dream Continues on page 28> Lyndsay Sutton (center) and her Aunt, Margo Storie speak with with veteran television correspondent and anchor Forrest Sawyer at ATSSA’s 47th Annual Convention and Traffic Expo.