HASTINGS, Mich. — For as far as the eye could see on the frosty Saturday morning in Hastings, tow trucks lined the street, and the next street and the street after that.
"This isn't competitors out there, this is family," said Jeff Whaley, owner of Truthful Towing in Wyoming, Michigan. "We all do the same job but for different people."
When a third-generation tow truck driver, Keagan Spencer, was hit and killed the week prior while trying to rescue a dog from the median on M-6, Whaley and hundreds of other drivers again shared the same job: Remember the 25-year-old man.
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"He knew everybody in the industry," Whaley said. "From the east side of the state to the west side of the state, north, south— He helped everybody.”
An "American tow man," according to his father, Matt, Keagan began tinkering with the controls as a child, lowering the flatbed before he could see above the wheel. A few weeks prior to his death, he signed on with Towzilla Towing, becoming a co-owner.
"Keagan was very young. Keagan was very driven," Whaley said. "Great businessman. Had a head on his shoulders."
The men and women whose job is to pull over to the side of the road and risk their lives to lend a helping hand, say Spencer stopped for everyone who needed his.
"He's the type of person that would drop anything for anyone," said Aryan Coulter, a childhood friend. "I knew if the roles were switched, Keagan would be there for me."
From East State Street in Hastings to Thornapple Valley Church, a caravan of tow trucks and emergency vehicles honked horns and wailed sirens. The Thin Yellow Line flag flew from many a flatbed, a representing tow truck drivers and dispatchers.
"If you see one of us, see a police car, tow trucks, fire, ambulance, slow down, move over," Whaley said. "It's not an inconvenience, it's a law."
