At 6-foot-4 and 225 pounds, Joseph Boyer was betting he wouldn’t be lifted off his feet when he went out in hurricane-force gusts to remove pieces of his fence from the roadway.
He rushed out into the freak storm Jan. 9 to pull the fence from the blind curve that already had proved dangerous to drivers. But as he lifted the heavy boards the wind lifted them both and dropped them hard onto the pavement.
Boyer’s head slammed into the ground; the fence slammed onto Boyer.
He spent almost two weeks in a medically induced coma recovering from brain bleeding, bruised organs and three fractured ribs. But he seemed to be recovering.
He was preparing to go to a recovery center in Denver last week when blood clots sent his organs into failure and ultimately claimed his life.
Boyer, 58, died Monday. His was the only death attributed to the high winds.
“He never would have thought the wind would have blown him over. His nickname was ‘Big Joe,'” Boyer’s only daughter, Christina Boyer, said Thursday. “If it can happen to my dad, it can happen to anyone.”
Read the full story at
