Rick Scibelli Jr./Special to the Tribune

Orthopedics nurse intern Becky Hodges shares a light moment with Joe Chavez in his room at University of New Mexico Hospital. Despite having lost his leg after being hit by a car on Paseo del Norte, the road worker remains in good spirits. "I am alive," he said Saturday. "I don't see any downside to it." Chavez said he looks forward to country dancing on his prosthetic leg.

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While setting out and taking up construction-zone orange barrels around the city, Richard Torrez has been hit with beer bottles, hamburgers and paintballs.

His arms have been deeply bruised by vehicles' side mirrors as drivers carelessly zip past.

But what happened to Torrez's colleague and friend, Joe Chavez, was far worse.

"So much scarier; worst thing I've ever seen," Torrez said.

Chavez's life was forever altered on Feb. 4 — the day he lost a leg after being struck by a car on Paseo del Norte.

The incident has left the 43-year-old road crew worker in the hospital for the past week, trying to remain positive as he ponders a future that will include a prosthetic leg.

"I think I'm doing all right. The people who visit me are more surprised that I'm upbeat," Chavez said from his bed at University of New Mexico Hospital. "I'm grateful to have a second chance at life. I'm not dead, so I keep telling myself I could have been dead, and my son and friends could have been mourning me instead of looking at me."

Police say Chavez was struck by driver Joseph Gallegos, 18, as Gallegos tried to pass a SUV on the right at Paseo del Norte near Second Street Northwest.

Gallegos said he remembers that he rounded the SUV just feet in front of the work crew's blinking merge sign as the workers picked up barrels in the area.

Chavez said he saw Gallegos' vehicle coming and tried to jump. But the careening car, which had already smashed into a crew trailer and truck, struck Chavez, then another truck, before spinning out.

"I saw the whole thing happening," Chavez said. "I thought I was dead."

Chavez's left leg was smashed so badly that it had to be amputated above the knee.

"When I looked down at my leg I could see the bottom of my foot," Chavez said. "Everyone was going by slow. I could hear people passing by say `Oh my God. Look at his legs.' "

Torrez's recollections of the accident, if possible, are more revealing — if not bitter — about the dangers road workers face.

"People were weaving in between Joe and the car (Gallegos') trying to get through traffic," Torrez said, estimating the gap was 15 feet between the two. "Even then, they didn't care."

Only one passing motorist stopped to offer help, he added.

Gallegos, slightly injured from the crash, stood at the site, telling Torrez over and over that he didn't see the crew or their warning signs.

Gallegos, who will likely face a traffic ticket but no criminal charges, said that if he had seen the blinking sign he wouldn't have tried to switch lanes.

He estimates he was driving about 60 mph, the speed of the other traffic and the SUV in front of him.

Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department Deputy Larry Tonna, investigating the crash, said no witnesses have reported that Gallegos was driving recklessly or too fast for the area.

"To know he lost his leg, it makes me feel really bad, truly sorry," Gallegos said in an interview from his home in northwest Albuquerque. "I would do anything I could do to help him, and if there is anything I can do I am willing to do it."

Gallegos, a high school dropout close to completing his GED, said he was on his way to a job interview to "do something better for me."

"I'm just really sorry from the bottom of my heart. I'm real grateful to be alive," Gallegos said. "All I could ever wish for the guy is I hope he doesn't feel real negative."

Gallegos' mother, who didn't give her name, said the family has tried to send flowers to Chavez's hospital room, but like all trauma victims, Chavez was checked in under an assumed name: "Magnolia."

That kind of subterfuge makes Chavez laugh, an unexpected sound from a man who just lost a limb.

Chavez's bosses at Advantage Barricade and Roadmark say they aren't entirely shocked by Chavez's resiliency.

"When Joe is mad, he still has a good attitude," said Jim Key, owner of Advantage Barricade and Roadmark. "He's a joker."

But he's not a joker when it comes to safety, coworkers say.

"None of us are. We take it very seriously," said Advantage co-owner Randy Bennett.

Monthly safety meetings offer reminders for workers who spend hours on busy thoroughfares. But unlike other occupations where safety messages are met with rolled eyes, Torrez said road crew workers really listen.

As they should.

About 220 road crew workers are killed on road job sites a year in the United States, a statistic that has held steady for the last eight years, according to the National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse.

Even more are hurt. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 270 injuries were reported by highway workers in 2005.

Two of those injuries occurred on southbound I-25 in August 2005, when a Public Service Company of New Mexico employee and another Advantage Barricade worker, Paul Chavez, then 29, were seriously injured after a semi-trailer hauling printer toner crashed into a cherry picker hoisting the PNM worker to change bulbs in streetlights.

Both men survived, but Chavez was on life support at one time, workers at Advantage Barricade said.

"It is a really scary situation," Key said. "People have no regard for us, and driving is getting worse."

New hires who have completed their training and safety courses are told to observe from the work truck on-site for several days before being allowed to work near traffic, Torrez said.

"I walk backward to my truck so I can see traffic going down the side of you," Torrez said. "I always am thinking about it."

And Chavez was safety conscious, too, Torrez said.

"He, like all of us, wants to go home at the end of the day," Torrez said.

Chavez, divorced with a 15-year-old son, said part of his reward for a hard week at work is the weekend — a chance to go country dancing. It was his favorite pastime.

"I'll still do it once I get used to the prosthetic. I ain't dead," Chavez said.

He and his colleagues at Advantage Barricade asked that other drivers think about Joe Chavez the next time road crews are working behind orange barrels.

"Slow down in construction zones. People who are out there are just trying to earn a living," Key said. "Wherever you are going is still going to be there. Just go slow."