Amy Snyder’s Story

My name is Amy Snyder. My stepfather, Heiland Goldsborough, was a worker for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. I think he really loved his job. He felt like he was doing something worthwhile—making the roads better for everyone who drove on them to go to work, transport goods, go to school, or just to go some place new.

Each morning when I got up to go to school, I would find a note from my dad, telling me he loved me and reminding me that he would pick me up after school.

That all changed one March day in 1999.

During a school assembly, we were outside listening to our local fire chief talk about responding to fires and other emergencies. He had driven an ambulance to our high school as part of his presentation. I got to sit in the ambulance and look at all the knobs, buttons and gadgets across the dashboard. As I sat there, a call came across the radio. The dispatcher reported that there was a bad traffic accident. One person was dead. Three others were trapped in their vehicle.

I quickly jumped out of the ambulance as the emergency responders hurried away to attend to the accident.

It had been an exciting day at school, and I couldn’t wait to tell my dad about it when he came to pick me up.

But he didn’t come.

I waited and waited, and finally began to walk home, angry that I had been forgotten. On the trek home, I noticed a major traffic jam and started feeling less angry. Maybe it was due to that accident, I reasoned, and maybe Dad was held up by it.

Arriving at my house I found no one home. That was odd. And the neighbors didn’t know anything. Then a haze of activity began to whirl about me. My mom came home very upset, then left again. Two police officers came to my door and asked for my mom.

No one would answer my questions. I began to panic. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was.

After what seemed to be an eternity, my mom came home. She was dazed and crying. After a few minutes, she told me that Dad was in heaven, with God.

He was one of the people in the accident that I heard about when I was sitting in the ambulance earlier that day at school.

I later learned that his DOT pickup was struck by a larger vehicle as he and co-workers were parked on the side of the road at a work zone. He and one of the co-workers were killed. The other two were injured.

While I know my story is a sad one, I also know there are many similar ones—too many.

Recalling these painful memories is a hard thing to do. I wish I could make sure that someone else’s dad will be there to pick her up after school . . . hug her when she graduates, cry as he walks her down the wedding aisle, and smile as he sees her first child.

Work zones are dangerous places. Please slow down and pay attention when you get near one.

Note: Used by permission of Amy Snyder; as adapted from a talk given by her at the National Work Zone Awareness Week program in Capitol Heights, Maryland, on April 9, 2002.