School traffic guard cheats death

WESTFALL n In his first year on the job as traffic director as Delaware Valley replacing the late John Wilkins, Mike Chlebowski had a perfect safety record up until this Tuesday with 10 days left on the school calendar. Chlebowski began what he thought was a normal afternoon at about 2 p.m. when he pulled along the side of U.S. Route 6/209 heading west into Milford to unload his vehicle of traffic cones in front of the elementary school. Chaos then ensued. “I saw him coming in my rear view mirror and thought, ‘oh my God, he’s going to hit me.’ So I grabbed the steering wheel and held on,” Chlebowski said. The young driver of the Chevy Blazer which plowed into Chlebowski’s truck had fallen asleep at the wheel on his way home from Monticello. After the collision, the Chevy continued another 200 feet down the road, through a fence, and then up the embankment, stopping a few feet short of the Interstate 84 guard rail. Both the unidentified driver and traffic director sustained minor injuries and were not transported to the hospital. Elementary school gym classes were playing on the field bordering the three-lane on the other side of the double yellow lines. Within a half hour of the collision, a traffic guard was struck and killed in New York State at nearby Walkill High School. “It is a very dangerous job,” Chlebowski conceded. “But I am not going to leave. I like dealing with the kids everyday. You just have to be aware of your surroundings.” Chlebowski, a 1984 graduate of Delaware Valley, is a retired police officer of 20 years. He said he feels very fortunate to be alive after Tuesday’s accident. If just a few seconds more elapsed, he said he would have been unloading his cones and been pinned between both vehicles. He is also very thankful to Milford Chrysler for providing him with a loaner truck, which now sits a little further off the road with a few more flashing lights.