When Andrea Walski heard about the crash on Interstate 90 in southeastern Minnesota on Aug. 31, 2000, she figured her husband, State Patrol Cpl. Ted Foss, would be late for dinner that night.
But Foss, 35, never came home. He was on the shoulder of the freeway, conducting a traffic stop near Winona, Minn., when he was struck by a semitrailer truck and killed. He left behind two small children.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the tragic event, the Department of Public Safety on Monday unveiled a sign not far from the crash site on I-90 in memory of the fallen trooper who worked for the patrol for 15 years — and whose death resulted in the state's Move Over Law.
The law requires drivers who come upon the flashing lights of stopped emergency vehicles and maintenance and utility vehicles to move over one full lane when passing, or to slow down significantly if moving over isn't possible.
"It's a very simple thing to do, a respectful thing to do, to slow down and move over," said Walski, who spoke publicly about Foss' death for the first time in an interview with the Star Tribune.
Foss had met a trooper as a child and knew he wanted to follow in the trooper's footsteps, Walski said. He graduated near the top of his patrol class and chose to work in southeastern Minnesota to be near his father, who was being treated for lung cancer at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
"He liked the detail-oriented nature of the job, particularly investigating crashes," Walski said. "He loved to help people."
After Foss died, Walski said she got a card from a man who her husband had helped after his vehicle broke down. The man, who said he had many encounters with officers, wrote that "it was so refreshing to be respected by law enforcement," she recalled.
