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Road Ranger lived to help and died helping

By MARLON A. WALKER
Published March 7, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - As a Road Ranger, Donald Bradshaw died doing what he loved: helping somebody.

On Sunday, Bradshaw, 66, was shutting down a traffic lane along southbound Interstate 275 near the Howard-Armenia avenues exit in Tampa to help the driver of a wrecked Mitsubishi Eclipse.

A 1992 Nissan Sentra, driven by Benjamin J. Green, 31, drove through the lane closure and hit him, the Florida Highway Patrol said. The investigation is continuing.

Around the clock, Road Rangers patrol I-275 through Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, the west end of Interstate 4 and the east end of the Courtney Campbell Parkway in a program underwritten by the Florida Department of Transportation, which contracts with Anchor Towing.

Rangers check on every vehicle pulled off the road. They carry jugs of gasoline and diesel fuel. They carry water to soothe overheated radiators, compressed air for flat tires.

Bradshaw, the second Road Ranger to die in a Tampa Bay area accident since the program began in 1999, absolutely loved his work.

When he and the other Road Rangers received their uniforms last year, the hats did not match. New hats would take weeks. So Bradshaw used his own money to buy them all matching hats - dark blue with orange reflective letters spelling out FDOT.

He was always doing things to make sure his co-workers were happy, those who knew him said.

"He was very dedicated to what he was doing and he really enjoyed it," said Terry Hensley, FDOT's traffic incident manager.

Hensley said Bradshaw's wife, Linda, told someone with the Road Rangers once that her husband had left retirement to go back to something he loved.

News of his death shocked his co-workers at Anchor Towing.

"He had a wonderful personality, was always stressing safety and was conscious about doing the right thing. He took pleasure in it," said Lourdes Daniel, owner of the tow truck company. "It's a very terrible loss for us. He will be missed terribly."

Monday, Hensley remembered Bradshaw as a tall man always ready with good suggestions for the Road Rangers program.

"He was just a friendly, professional guy," Hensley said. "He was willing to tell you if he saw things that were needing to be improved upon. We had no bad feedback on him whatsoever."

Justin Willis was the other Road Ranger killed. He was struck on Dec. 28, 2001, by a hit-and-run driver on I-275 at Lois Avenue. He died three days later.

[Last modified March 7, 2006, 01:13:07]