Tow company owners lost a son and a driver in similar wrecks on same KC highway

Amy Gresham immediately grew concerned when one of her tow truck drivers called Sunday night to say one of their trucks had been hit on the road.

“I had just given Johnny that call,” said Gresham, who co-owns GT Tow Service of Smithville with her husband, James. “And I knew that he was the only one in that area.”

Then came the tragic news.

“Somebody needs to get here,” a friend at the scene said. “It’s bad . . . The driver ran. The driver ran.’”

A hit-and-run driver had killed one of GT Tow’s drivers, who was helping a woman in a stranded car along Interstate 35 in Kansas City, North.

The driver was John “Johnny” Stewart, who had worked for GT Tow for about five years and had a wife at home.

For Gresham, the crash brought back horrible memories of the day her 18-year-old son Blake Gresham was killed in an eerily similar crash. Blake Gresham died in August 2012 when a box truck struck him while he was getting ready to tow a stranded vehicle on the same highway.

“It was pretty close to the same thing,” Amy Gresham said.

Her husband, James Gresham, knows the dangers himself. He was seriously injured by a drunk driver while operating a tow truck in January 1998 on Interstate 29. That crash also killed Kansas City Police Officer Thomas Meyers.

Because of their son’s death, the Greshams became strong advocates for “move over” laws, which require drivers to give wide berth to emergency vehicles, including tow trucks, that are stopped on the roadside.

They started a nonprofit organization, Move Over For Blake, to raise public safety awareness for tow truck workers and other emergency personnel on the roadways.

Then, on Sunday, they lost Stewart in the same type of accident.

“We are devastated by the death of Johnny,” said Brooke Stewart, his widow. “ He was a good man that was killed while doing what he loved to do.”

A vigil for John Stewart will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Harmony Vineyard Church, 600 N.E. 46th St., Kansas City, North.

Stewart went above and beyond to help people, Gresham said.

“I’ll be honest with you, just about every tow that Johnny did, all of his customers would always tip him,” she said. “He always made sure that he did the fullest that he could do. He always made sure his people were taken care of.”

Police told Gresham about mid-morning Monday that they had found a suspect car and had a “person of interest” in custody.

“I hope they prosecute this guy,” she said. “We have to set an example.”

The fatal crash happened about 10:45 p.m. Sunday along northbound I-35 near the North Brighton Avenue exit.

Stewart had responded to a call about a woman whose car had broken down on Interstate 35. It would be a short tow. Prior to loading the car, he had the woman move to the tow truck, where it was safer.

“He had his car loaded — it was strapped,” Gresham said. “I honestly believe he was coming around the backside of his truck to get in to leave. He was pretty much done with what he had to do there.”

It’s then that she thinks he was struck by the hit-and-run driver.

“I was very angry,” she said. “I just don’t how you hit somebody and leave.”

The need for roadside safety, shown to the Greshams through their son’s death near the Christopher S. Bond Bridge, is still as great as ever, the tow company owner said.

“Every year on my son’s anniversary, we go down to the Bond Bridge and we set up there,” Amy Gresham said.

They sell T-shirts and “Move over for Blake” bracelets to fund billboards in the Kansas City area and elsewhere to urge motorists to give room for emergency workers on the side of the road.

Gresham thinks cellphones are a big distraction on the road. She also thinks lax enforcement of “move over” laws allows the problem to persist.

“It all starts with the police department. They have to do their job to make this work,” she said. “If they are not out there writing the tickets and doing what needs to be taken care of, then this is never going to work.”

With the approach of Thanksgiving, one of the biggest travel holidays, Gresham hopes that drivers remember Stewart’s death when they take to the roads.

On Monday, Stewart’s friends and coworkers painted a wooden cross white. They will place it where Stewart was killed, to let people know someone died there.

“People have got to pay attention,” said Gresham. “People have got to really pay attention.”