SARASOTA, Fla. — One by one, parents of young people killed after their car or truck drove off the roads and hit guardrails have shared their stories.
“I miss him so much,” said Christy DeFilippo, Hunter Burns' mom.
Burns died after the truck he was driving crashed into a guardrail off of southbound Interstate 75 in Manatee County, just north of the exit for University Parkway in Sarasota. An engineer told 10 Investigates the guardrail was improperly installed.
“Hunter was the most amazing human. He just lit up the room when he walked in,” DeFilippo said. "He had the biggest personality. He was loved by so many people."
Steve Eimers has been working to improve guardrail safety both here in Florida and across the country. He previously told 10 Investigates he knew his daughter's situation was critical based on his experience working in EMS.
“I said, 'Would there be any transports?' and they said, 'No,'" Eimers told 10 Investigates back in February. “I didn’t need a police officer to knock on my door at that point. I knew my daughter was dead.”
His daughter, Hannah, died at 17 years old after her car crashed into a guardrail on a Tennessee highway.
Since Hannah’s death, Eimers has advocated for safer guardrails on the roads. After Eimers helped 10 Investigates locate dozens of improperly installed guardrails on Florida roads, the Florida Department of Transportation said they would conduct a statewide review.
That was back in February. Now, the department tells 10 Investigates they identified one-third of their guardrails need to be replaced or repaired.
They sent this statement:
“The Florida Department of Transportation has reviewed 100% of the 26,000 guardrail installations across all state-owned roadways to ensure compliance. Through this review, roughly 1/3 of the trailing end treatments, end terminals, and crash cushions qualified for some sort of repair while the remainder of our inventory involved relatively minor routine maintenance and repairs, such as replacing reflective markings and ground grading improvements.”
“That is literally less than one year that we spoke to you. How incredible is this? I said in the beginning, if we could save one person by sharing Hunter’s story, this will bring so much change,” DeFilippo said.
FDOT also says they accelerated all routine maintenance, meaning the department is not waiting for the two-year cycle guardrail systems typically go through for any needed maintenance to ensure all guardrails on state-owned facilities meet current maintenance standards.
An FDOT spokesperson said, “We anticipate we will complete all work by the end of December. To date, repairs and routine maintenance to our entire inventory are 60% complete.”
“In 7 years of doing guardrail advocacy against the United States, for calls for replacement from California to Maine to Florida to Ontario,” Eimers said, fighting back tears. “I’ve never seen a response this magnitude. It’s unprecedented. It’s unprecedented.
FDOT is also working closely with our asset maintenance contractors to ensure relevant training on installation requirements and procedures is provided and followed statewide.
“To see this light at the end of the tunnel is amazing,” DeFilippo said.
"We have to be talking millions of dollars here," Eimers said.
When we asked the Florida Department of Transportation for a cost of the repairs, they sent us back this statement:
Thank you for your advocacy on behalf of your viewers and all those who use Florida’s roadways. Safety remains the top priority of the Department and we are working to make any needed repairs as expeditiously as possible. Costs associated with repairs are being handled with in-house forces or through existing maintenance contracts.
We kindly decline the offer for an interview as our last statement should serve as the Department’s final statement on this issue.
We continue to process your outstanding records request.
Thank you again for your work on this series.