JOPLIN, Mo. -Robert Gooch was looking for a change in his life, and decided to make the switch from working in telecommunications, to being a tow truck driver.
“I absolutely love it,” says Robert Gooch, a tow truck driver at Cottrill’s Towing in Joplin.
He says it gives him freedom that his other job didn’t
“There’s no other place around where you can get out, meet people, and not be cooped inside all day”
Robert has been doing this for about four years, and says he’s loved it ever since.
As a driver, he says he just wants everyone to stay safe, especially with recent winter weather. Gooch even says he and his fellow drivers have struggled to drive through it.
“We had a couple times where we almost couldn’t get through the ice and barely managed to get through it.
Robert says he accepts it as just part of his job.
When reminiscing on times where he’s saved others, he makes a point to remind people of safety when driving in harsh winter conditions.
“I was just coming up on one where, dead intersection, and the lady had unfortunately lost traction on ice, and went head first down into a ravine. thankfully she walked away from it, but i quite literally had to take the car up vertically just to get it out of the hole.”
Even Robert gets nervous driving in these conditions, and says the part that makes his job hard has been dealing with other drivers.
“We had an instance roughly two years ago. two o’clock in the morning, lights are flashing off every mile marker within eye shot, and had a gentleman hit the back of our truck at eighty miles an hour, thankfully everybody walked away safe but it’s just another issue of pay attention ”
Robert is dedicated to his job, and knows his life is at risk everyday.
“It does make you think a bit, this could be my day it could not but it’s just one of them things, there’s people out there who need your help. That’s what tow truck drivers, not just locally, across the country are doing. they’re going out putting their lives at risk.”
All they ask for in return is for people to be cautious and courteous to give them the room they need to save lives.