On New Year’s Day, Gord Bevan got up and went to work. While most of us were sleeping, he was in his truck, clearing the highways east of Calgary.
The 55-year-old man never came home. He died when his snowplow rolled off Highway 797 near Langdon.
“I feel so bad for his family,” said Tammy Pfeuti, who used to work with Bevan at Volker Stevin.
“He was a wonderful guy, a great person and I will miss him dearly and I know everybody will. He is our hero.”
According to Calgary EMS, paramedics were called to the scene on Highway 797, about two kilometres south of Highway 1, at about 7:50 a.m. on Jan. 1, for reports of an overturned vehicle.
Watch below from Jan. 1: A man is dead after rolling his snowplow into the ditch east of Calgary Sunday morning. The roads were in poor condition on New Year’s Day. Jenna Freeman reports.
“I felt terrible because I don’t think the public knows how the risks they take in their daily job are for our benefit,” Pfeuti said. “It’s a tragedy.”
Bevan is being remembered as a hard worker who was always ready to take on the early hours and difficult conditions that came with his job.
“He was a very dedicated person, very uplifting, a happy-go-lucky guy. He took his job and he did it with 110 per cent. He was a great teacher,” Pfeuti said.
On Monday morning, fellow Volker Stevin drivers were plowing the same highways where Bevan died.
Conner Tzupa drove through the snowstorm from his home in Airdrie to get to his company truck, parked east of Calgary.
“This morning it was pretty hairy. The snow came down pretty good last night,” Tzupa said. “It’s slippery. Especially when it comes to clearing the shoulders, you can get caught up in the ditch and pulled right in.”
READ MORE: ‘Drive slow and drive to conditions’ – city crews work to clear snow-covered Calgary roads
Snowplow drivers are not immune to slippery conditions and they often work with poor visibility, driving heavy vehicles that take much longer to stop than regular ones. Pfeuti recalls how important the snowplow drivers’ work was to first responders.
“I would get calls early in the morning from the RCMP, begging me: ‘when are you sending the snowplows out?’ And I would say, ‘we are sending them.’ And when you hear that in an RCMP voice, then you know that the roads are bad.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Bevan’s family. His funeral is being held in Calgary on Wednesday.
Bevan’s co-workers say he would just want everyone to be able to get home safely.
“The biggest piece of advice I can give is just take your time. It’s always better to arrive safe. If you’re in a rush, you can wind up in the ditch, or even worse,” said Tzupa, taking a break from driving his plow near Langdon.
“Take your time. You might get stuck behind a plow, but we’re trying to do our job to keep the road safe for everybody.”
The cause of the single-vehicle crash is still unknown.
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