Caltrans Workers’ Sacrifice Remembered

Of all the people attending a memorial service Thursday to honor Caltrans workers killed on the job, Christine Thome of Walnut had perhaps the deepest sorrow.

The 56-year-old widow -- who was the only person at the ceremony representing the victims’ families -- lost her husband, Juan Thome, 11 years ago this month when a big rig slammed into his orange Caltrans pickup truck on the Pomona Freeway in Diamond Bar. He was 47.

Juan Thome, a landscaping maintenance supervisor, had stopped along the freeway shoulder to hand out black arm bands to other workers to commemorate Caltrans’ annual Highway Workers’ Memorial Day on April 28, 1993.

He was one of 160 Caltrans highway workers killed on the job statewide since the agency began compiling statistics in 1924, officials said.

The latest fatality occurred Wednesday when structural steel painter William Calloway fell from the Benicia-Martinez Bridge near San Francisco, officials said.

On Thursday, about 200 transportation officials, highway workers, traffic reporters and California Highway Patrol officers gathered at a North Hollywood maintenance facility to recognize the workers who contend with poor weather, speeding vehicles and distracted, angry or drunk drivers as part of their daily work.

To honor those killed on the job, 160 orange jumpsuits, construction helmets and placards bearing each worker’s name were hung from individual tripods as a reminder of their sacrifice. Traffic reporters from Los Angeles television and radio outlets solemnly read each worker’s name.

To many drivers, a worker in an orange jumpsuit “tends to be a nameless, faceless person who brings out the animosity in people” as they sit in stop-and-go traffic waiting to pass through road construction sites, said Jim Thornton of KNX-AM (1070).

Traffic reporter Jeff Baugh of KFWB-AM (980) suggested that highway workers could be humanized through a few wording changes.

“Instead of saying Caltrans has closed the southbound lane of the Hollywood Freeway, we can say something like: ‘The men and women of Caltrans are working in the southbound lane of the Hollywood Freeway,’ ” he said. “If that slows one person down, we are doing a good service.”

Christine Thome, who was driving home from a funeral when she got caught in a traffic jam that, unknown to her, was caused by her husband’s fatal accident, said she was grateful for Thursday’s service.

“I am pleased that they are not forgetting those who died,” said Thome. “I am glad that they are raising the public’s awareness about the danger of the job.”