DOT worker hit by car in 1977 persevering
ASaratoga Springs Canadian woman in her 70s drove south on the Northway in a big sedan, lost control near Exit 12, veered onto the shoulder, barreled through safety cones and slammed into Rocco Levo.
The 32-year-old state Department of Transportation worker and father of two young children was part of a crew that repaired cracked roadway with asphalt.
Levo had turned toward a DOT truck a split-second before he was struck. He never saw what hit him, from behind, at waist-level. It shattered his body and altered his life in an instant.
The impact flipped him into the air, all 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds, shredded his backside on the car’s hood ornament and smashed his head through the car’s windshield.
“The guys on the job thought
I was dead,” Levo said. It was June 2, 1977. I spoke to Levo last week in Saratoga Hospital, 44 years after he suffered multiple-trauma injuries, including a severed spinal cord that left him a paraplegic. Decades of surgeries, persistent pain and chronic wounds had brought him to a grim decision to have his right foot amputated.
“Nothing else was working,” Levo said.
He looked down at his bandaged stump, shook his head and fought back tears. He was transferred this week to a rehab facility in Scotia. His goal is to be fitted with a prosthesis designed for his custom leg braces, which, along with metal rods in his back, had allowed him to stand and walk with the aid of a walker. It meant he was not confined to a wheelchair and offered a level of self-reliance. He wants to get back that control.
“I’ve kept my sanity all these years because I refused to give up my independence,” said Levo, 76. He noted that 44 years is a long run for a paraplegic, with diminished life expectancy due to higher risk for infection, cardiovascular disease, pneumonia and other ailments.
Levo’s mental toughness and resilience carried him through more than a dozen surgeries and a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease.
“I never wanted people feeling sorry for me,” he said. He wore a faded blue T-shirt that read “American Patriot.”
His family calls him by a nickname: Rock. His late father, Sabbath Levo, used an Italian phrase: testa dura. “My Dad was right. I’m hardheaded,” Levo said with a grin.
He was big and tough. He played football and basketball in high school, growing up in Saratoga Springs. He worked as a city police officer for a couple years and a few more as a security guard at Skidmore College before joining the DOT in 1970. He was assigned mostly to the Northway.
His only sibling, Sister Lynn Levo, a clinical psychologist and nun with the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, encouraged him to share his story. She hopes it reminds her brother that his life has purpose and meaning. She also wants to raise awareness for drivers to slow down in order to protect highway workers.
His sister, 75, of Albany, drove the Northway regularly to visit Levo at Saratoga Hospital over the past month. “It upsets me to see how fast people drive in work zones,” she said.
In addition to ongoing media campaigns, DOT officials are confronting a rising number of highway work zone violations, including three crashes that injured six highway workers at the end of April. State Police led the effort in issuing 444 tickets during a week in late April. Law enforcement officers dressed as highway workers and worked alongside DOT and Thruway Authority crews to catch violators and highlight the importance of safe driving in construction zones.
The most common violations were cellphone use, speeding and failure to move over. That week, the Capital Region accounted for 53 tickets, third most in eight regions across the state. Between 2018 and 2020, there were seven fatalities, 51 serious injuries and a total of 790 work zone intrusions involving DOT and contractor employees, according to DOT statistics.
“I want to see stronger enforcement of the laws,” Levo said, noting that doubling fines for speeding in a work zone is a good step,
Levo credits a DOT supervisor, Dave Palma, with quick action after the crash. Palma, whose brother is a physician, told the ambulance crew to turn around and take Levo directly to Albany Med because Levo’s grave injuries required acute trauma care that the nearer Saratoga Hospital could not provide.
“They told me I would never walk,” Levo said. He proved the doctors wrong.
Levo praised longtime friends Jimmy Grande, Dennis Capone and the late John Pennell for helping him through his recovery.
The love and support of his family pulled him through.
“He’s an inspiration for our family and others,” said his son, Rocco Jr, 50. “The word ‘can’t’ is not in his vocabulary.”
“He’s literally my best friend. It’s been really hard seeing him go through so much suffering,” said his daughter, Gina, 49, a mother of three sons, who lives five doors from her father and helps him shop and do household chores. Levo hopes to return to driving an SUV with hand controls. He used to drive back and forth solo to Florida, where he lived for 20 years after getting divorced when his kids were teenagers.
Family members were disappointed that Levo received only a modest payout from the driver’s insurance company, which covered only 10 percent of the $2.5 million he was awarded in a Saratoga County court. Levo could not recover the remainder due to the driver’s lack of assets, he said. Levo’s attorney, E. Stewart Jones, did not take a fee. Levo has a small state pension and Social Security, but struggles financially.
“I had to believe in myself to get through it,” said Levo, who counsels young paraplegics. ‘The hardest part is acceptance.”
Levo is making plans to return to the house he built himself in Wilton. His daughter will help him plant tomatoes and basil in containers on his deck. He wants to hold his great-grandson, Devin Jr., once again.
If you are driving through a highway work zone this summer, please slow down and move over. Do it for Rocco Levo.