A sanitation worker who had stepped out of his trash truck before sunrise to wave the traffic behind him around his stopped vehicle was struck and killed by a passing pickup truck on Friday morning in Lake Wales, Florida, the Lake Wales Police Department said. Gary Dewayne Mitchell, 60, of Auburndale, was operating a Republic Services trash truck on 1st Street when he stopped and got out to direct a motorist travelling behind him to go around the truck. While Mitchell was standing outside the vehicle, a 2019 Chevrolet 3500 pickup truck driven by Jacob Trinidad Lopez of Lake Wales, travelling northbound on 1st Street, struck him near the intersection of 1st Street and Emerald Avenue at approximately 6:11 a.m. on October 30, 2026. Mitchell was taken to AdventHealth Lake Wales, where he died of his injuries.

Source: Lake Wales Police Department statement, reported by Daily Ridge, Oct. 30, 2026

The department's account is preliminary, and the investigation is active and ongoing. In its first account of the morning, reported by Daily Ridge from Lt. Dale Hampton of the Lake Wales Police Department, the worker was preparing to pick up a roll-off dumpster when he was struck, and was dragged at least 100 feet. Emergency crews were dispatched at about 6:14 a.m. to 1st Street South near Emerald Avenue, and the Lake Wales Police Department, the Lake Wales Fire Department and Polk County Fire Rescue all responded. Hampton confirmed the crash was fatal and said Mitchell's family had been notified. A second local outlet, Eye in the Sky News, reporting the same police release, noted that the crash happened before sunrise while it was still dark outside — a detail investigators will weigh along with lighting, speed and visibility on that stretch of 1st Street.

Source: Eye in the Sky News, Oct. 30, 2026 (reporting the Lake Wales Police Department release)

What police have said — and what they have not said

Police have released the names of both men, the vehicles involved, the direction of travel and the sequence as their preliminary investigation understands it: a stopped sanitation truck, its driver outside the cab directing traffic around it, and a northbound pickup that struck him. What police have NOT announced is just as important for readers to hold onto. No charges against the pickup driver had been announced in the material available at publication time, and naming a driver in a police release is an identification, not an accusation. The department has not publicly stated the pickup's speed, whether alcohol or distraction is suspected, or a final finding on how the crash happened — and its release stresses that the information is preliminary and that additional details may be released as the investigation continues. Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact the Lake Wales Police Department or Heartland Crime Stoppers.

Source: Lake Wales Police Department statement, reported by Daily Ridge, Oct. 30, 2026

Background: the law written for exactly this roadside moment

Florida has a statute aimed squarely at the danger Mitchell was in. The state's Move Over law, Florida Statute 316.126, first enacted in 2002 and extended to sanitation vehicles in 2014, requires drivers approaching a stopped sanitation vehicle working at the roadside to vacate the lane closest to it on a multi-lane road when that can be done safely — and, where moving over is not safely possible, to slow to 20 miles per hour below the posted limit (or to 5 mph where the limit is 20 mph or less). A violation is a noncriminal traffic infraction carrying a fine and points on the driver's licence. The law exists because the most dangerous seconds of a roadside worker's shift are the ones spent on foot, outside the protection of the truck, with traffic passing at road speed — which is the position Mitchell was in, on foot beside a stopped truck, in the dark, directing another driver around it. Whether the Move Over law or any other traffic law was breached in this crash is a question for the Lake Wales investigation; police have made no such finding public so far.

Source: Florida Statute 316.126 (Move Over law), summary by Brooks Law Group

Why this story reaches truckers and roadside workers everywhere

Lake Wales is a city in Polk County, in central Florida between Tampa and Orlando, and 1st Street is an ordinary city street — not a highway work zone with barriers and a patrol car. That ordinariness is the point for Awaaz Punjab's readers, a large share of whom drive trucks or work around them for a living, in the United States and Canada alike. Refuse and recycling routes start before dawn by design, so the collection happens before the day's traffic peaks; the trade-off is that the worker on the back or beside the truck is doing the most exposed part of the job in darkness, in the same hour when delivery trucks, pickups and early commuters are moving fastest on empty streets. The sequence police describe here — a professional driver stopping his own work to make the road safer for the motorist behind him, and being struck while doing it — is the scenario every 'move over, slow down' campaign in North America is built around. For any reader who drives for a living, the practical habits are the ones the Florida statute codifies: when a service truck is stopped ahead with its lights on, change lanes if you can, and if you cannot, take 20 mph off — before you reach the truck, not beside it.

Source: Lake Wales Police Department statement, reported by Daily Ridge, Oct. 30, 2026

What happens next

The Lake Wales Police Department's investigation continues, and the department says additional details may be released as they become available. The questions that investigation is expected to answer are the ones its preliminary release leaves open: the pickup's speed and path on 1st Street, the lighting and visibility at 6:11 a.m., what safety equipment Mitchell was wearing, and whether the evidence supports a citation, a charge, or a finding that this was a crash without a prosecutable violation. Republic Services, the national waste-services company whose truck Mitchell was operating, had not issued a public statement in the material available at publication time. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when the department releases its findings or announces any charge.

Source: Eye in the Sky News, Oct. 30, 2026 (reporting the Lake Wales Police Department release)