My mistake in a dire situation

Hello, I am Doug Vogel, the District Superintendent in District Four, which covers the
southeast portion of Kansas. I have been the District Superintendent since 1999. Overall, I have had the opportunity to work within District Four for 34 years.

Doug Vogel

While working for KDOT in multiple positions, I have experienced a lot of good and a lot of not-so-good occurrences. In 1997, I was a new Subarea Supervisor in Area Three, which covers Elk, Wilson, Chautauqua and Montgomery counties. That Subarea office sits right off U.S. 75. I remember that particular day was mid-summer, around 5:30 p.m. The crew had already left for the day, and I stayed behind finishing up some paperwork.

As I was getting ready to leave, I heard a loud ‘BOOM,’ to the south of the office. My curiosity led me to hopping into a state pickup to try and find the cause of the noise. About a mile or so into my drive, I start seeing smoke. As I drove closer towards the smoke, I noticed a chair sitting in the southbound lane. Someone was sitting in the seat, still buckled in. 

I drove closer and stopped the truck about 20 yards from the person. I angled the pickup to cover him from traffic view. Nearby, I noticed there was a conversion van, or what was left of it, 50 yards to the west along the fence line. I shifted my eyesight south. There was a semi angled in the ditch. The rest of it was on the shoulder.

As I exited the pickup, I looked up the hill. I saw a car coming towards me from the north. When the car got closer to me, it stopped around 50 yards from my parked pickup. I approached him, and I asked if he could block traffic further down the highway, call 911 and not let anyone through. As he drove off, a second vehicle approached. I asked that vehicle to stop traffic coming from the north. He backed up, and he started blocking traffic as well.

I started walking towards the man in the captain’s chair, sitting in the highway. Unfortunately, he was deceased. I knew I needed more KDOT assistance to secure this site before going to the van. I went around the front of pickup, which was pointing to the centerline of the highway, to get my cell phone from the front seat. I remember looking forward only. A car that was not supposed to be there raced by and the mirror of his car hit my vest as it went by me. My vest slapped my side and left a nice welt, which later turn into a bruise.

I do not think the car ever saw me. If they did see me, they chose to just continue speeding down the highway. I never saw the brake lights lit. If I had taken one more step, my career would have ended a lot sooner.

I always considered myself to be a safe person - one who knows better to look twice when working on the highway. That late afternoon, I made a mistake that could have cost me my life. I let the stress of the situation distract me from being more aware of my surroundings.

No matter how safe you may think you are in a situation, you need to always be alert to your surroundings, no matter how dire a situation might be.