Families Share Heartbreak, Urge Drivers to Move Over at Mifflin Safety Event
MIFFLIN — Kathy Wigal went to a soccer game Saturday morning and found herself thinking about the moments her family will never have.
Her surviving son was coaching one team. Across the field was the team her son Philip might have coached, with his daughter playing.
She imagined the brothers competing against each other. The laughter. The friendly rivalry. Another family memory.
But Philip was not there.
The 35-year-old firefighter, husband and father of two daughters was killed while working at a crash scene on Interstate 71 in April 2022.
“We have the memory of all those fun times,” Kathy said. “But we’re not able to make any more.”
Hours after that soccer game, Kathy and her husband, Mike, stood before a gathering at the new Mifflin Community Volunteer Fire Department station and asked drivers to help spare another family their pain.
“Please, when you’re out on the road, I beg you to slow down and move over when you see flashing lights,” she said.
Their message was at the heart of the Move Over Law Awareness Event and Fundraiser held Saturday, Oct. 17, at the station, 16 Maine St. Auer Towing & Recovery, Safety First Driving Academy and the fire department brought together families, first responders, towing professionals and community members for an afternoon of remembrance, education and support.
The event featured food, family activities, auctions and the National Work Zone Memorial. Proceeds were designated for the American Traffic Safety Services Foundation, which supports roadway safety education, scholarships and remembrance programs.
But the families who spoke gave the cause its most personal meaning. They shared the lives behind the names and the empty places left at home.
Philip Wigal had wanted to become a firefighter since he was 4 years old, his mother recalled. He began training after high school in 2006 and built a life around helping others.
Kathy remembered sitting down for a family dinner when his emergency tones sounded. His oldest daughter, then just 2, already understood what would happen next.
“Bye-bye, Daddy,” the little girl said.
Philip left to answer the call.
On April 11, 2022, the Town and Country Fire District lieutenant was working at a crash scene on I-71 in Wayne County when a commercial vehicle struck emergency vehicles at the scene. He never returned home.
“There is a hole in our heart that will never heal,” Kathy said.
Mike described how he began taking memorial stickers to fire departments after his son’s death. He hoped firefighters would place them somewhere they would see before stepping out of their vehicles.
If seeing Philip’s name prompted someone to pause, look both ways and remember their training, Mike said, the sticker would serve its purpose.
The couple’s goal is to protect other families from the loss they carry every day.
State Rep. Melanie Miller thanked the Wigals for continuing to share their son’s story and discussed House Bill 132, legislation she and Rep. Meredith Craig championed in his name.
Miller told those gathered that the proposal sought stronger consequences for move-over violations and additional driver education. She and the family urged continued support for the effort.
“I wish that the circumstances that brought us here together today would have never happened,” Miller said.
She reminded the audience that every person working beside traffic has someone waiting for them.
“Behind every flashing light on the side of the road is a person,” she said. “Someone’s husband or wife, someone’s father or mother, someone’s son or daughter.”
For Christina Greenwood, speaking Saturday meant giving her son Jordan Thomas a voice.
Jordan was 25 and working as a third-year construction apprentice when he was killed in a work zone Feb. 28, 2026, she said. He had been back at work for just one week following the winter season.
Greenwood said an impaired driver entered the work zone, struck a generator and then struck her son before leaving the scene.
She spoke of Jordan’s smile, his laughter and the hugs she misses. He worked hard, wanted to make his family proud and carried his grandfather’s advice that honest effort mattered, whatever work he chose.
The grief, she explained, follows her through ordinary days.
“It is best described as having six broken ribs,” Greenwood said. “Nobody can see them, but it hurts to breathe every day.”
Still, she intends to keep showing up, saying Jordan’s name and asking for safer roads.
“I will keep being his voice,” she said, “and I will never let this world erase who he was.”
Mike Gallaway spoke on behalf of himself and his wife, Jenny, about their son Trenton, known as Trent.
Trent went to work for the Richland County Highway Department after high school and quickly found work he loved. He earned his commercial driver’s license and was building his future.
On Oct. 2, 2024, he was killed while working with a road crew when a driver attempting to pass struck him, his father said. Trent was 20.
His family remembered a hardworking young man who enjoyed trucks, hunting, lifting weights with his brother and spending time with friends. He was funny, liked teasing his mother and fiercely loved his family, friends and faith.
Six days before his death, he bought the GMC Denali he had saved for.
Mike asked drivers to picture someone they love standing inside the work zone they are approaching.
For the people working there, he explained, that stretch of pavement is their workplace, just as an office, factory floor or nurses’ station is for someone else.
The families’ accounts continued through letters read by Ashley Williams.
Jim Shriner, owner of Broad & James Towing and Auto Care in Columbus, remembered a longtime employee named Bill who was killed beside I-71 in September 2012.
Bill was a reader, a history enthusiast, a golfing companion and a father devoted to his three daughters. Within the family business, he was family too.
Shriner’s statement recalled the early-morning telephone call that brought news of the crash and the daughters who had to grow up without their father.
“Please support the move over law,” his statement urged, “and please do not drive distracted or impaired.”
Another letter came from Shayla Holland, whose husband, Joshwa Holland, was killed while working in a highway construction zone Sept. 18, 2026. He was 27.
She remembered Josh as her best friend, a father, an outdoorsman and someone willing to stop what he was doing to help another person.
They had plans. They had a little boy to raise.
Then she faced the task of explaining to their 4-year-old son that his dad was not coming home.
Behind a brief news report about a fatal crash, she wrote, is a family whose entire life has changed.
“He was my husband. He was a dad. And he was our whole world.”
The danger was familiar to the firefighters hosting the gathering.
Mifflin Fire Chief J.J. Bittinger recounted a July 1, 2021, crash in which a semi struck the department’s utility truck on I-71, pushing it into another fire vehicle.
Bittinger had just walked between the vehicles. His wife, who also serves with the department, was nearby and initially did not know whether he had been caught in the wreckage.
Thankfully, he said, no one was injured.
His account brought the message close to home: these crashes happen on the roads local crews travel and work every day.
The crash statistics supplied for the event recorded 730 move-over crashes through Oct. 14, 2026, including 93 classified as fatal or severe-injury crashes.
Saturday’s speakers asked the public to remember the people within those numbers.
A firefighter who left dinner to help a stranger. A young man proud of his first career. A son whose mother misses his hugs. A father with three daughters. A husband who should have come home to his wife and little boy.
Their families cannot change what happened. By telling their stories, they hope to change what another driver does next.
Slow down. Pay attention. Move over.
Note:
Time is running short. Philip Wigal’s Law must clear the legislature before the current General Assembly ends at the close of 2026. If it does not, the bill dies and would have to be reintroduced in the next session, starting the legislative process again.
That deadline adds urgency to the families’ plea. After unanimous House passage, they are asking residents to keep calling and writing their state senators and the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging them to advance House Bill 132 for a Senate vote before the year ends.
For Mike and Kathy Wigal, every call is another chance to protect someone else’s child. They cannot bring Philip home, but they continue sharing his story in the hope that another family will never have to endure their heartbreak.
Residents can contact Sen. Mark Romanchuk’s office at 614-466-7505 or through his official contact form. Readers elsewhere can use Find Your Senator to reach their own senator.
