Tow truck operator killed in Hilton Head crash while on the job, employer says
A tow truck operator working Thursday afternoon on Hilton Head Island was killed in a roadside collision involving the semi-truck he had just lifted off a curb, his employer said.
The Beaufort County Coroner’s Office identified the man as 42-year-old Floyd Crespo of Effingham, Georgia. He was pronounced dead of his injuries at the scene.
It happened after Floyd had finished lifting the semi-truck off a curb near Main Street on north-end Hilton Head around 2:45 p.m. Thursday and moved his wrecker toward a nearby parking lot so the roadway could reopen, according to a statement from Rahn’s Wrecker Service, where Floyd worked for over three years.
Floyd was standing at the control compartment of his wrecker and “rolling in the cables” when the semi-truck turned around in the nearby traffic circle and began turning into the parking lot, “swiping the wrecker and pinning Floyd” between the two vehicles, the company said. Rahn’s Wrecker Service called it a “senseless accident” and another reminder of the rules requiring drivers to slow down and move over for emergency vehicles, including tow truck operators.
Floyd joined Rahn’s Wrecker Service after relocating from New Jersey and had over 20 years in the towing industry, the company said. Its post described him as “one of the hardest working team members we have ever had.”
The wrecker service announced plans for a truck procession in Floyd’s honor Wednesday morning at the Thomas C. Strickland and Sons Funeral Home in Rincon, followed by a memorial service at Freedom Park.
His death came after three troopers from the South Carolina Highway Patrol were struck by vehicles during traffic stops within a month, one fatally.
In response, the S.C. Department of Public Safety conducted a statewide crackdown on the “move over law” and the state’s new hands-free law. Nearly 18,000 citations were written in the five-day period for violations of the move over law, the agency reported.
The Lowcountry’s last similar case was in late 2023, when tow truck driver and Marine veteran Eric “P.K.” Albertson, 39, was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver while helping a customer in Jasper County.
A Ridgeland man, 36-year-old Joshua Jamaal Frazier, was arrested several months later and charged with fleeing the scene of the crash. His case remained pending.
Thursday’s incident was reported by the SCHP as a pedestrian fatality in its release to media outlets — which is a common and “unfortunate” occurrence among traffic safety agencies, according to a 2024 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
“When [roadside assistance providers] are struck while working outside of their vehicle, they typically are reported simply as pedestrians, rendering them indistinguishable from other pedestrians injured or killed in crashes,” the study says. “This has hindered past efforts to study roadside assistance provider safety.”
