Juliana Lepore and Brittany Schaefer

56 mins ago

HARTFORD, Connecticut (WTNH) – After Jose Diaz-Nieves died in June while working on a Connecticut highway, his family wants to introduce a bill in his honor.

“We need laws that protect the families of those like Jose who died while working in construction,” Archbishop Dexter Burke said at the vigil for Diaz-Nieves on Wednesday.

The bill would provide free college or vocational education for the children of workers who die on the job through no fault of their own. The bill has yet to be introduced.

Three people – Trooper First Class Aaron Pelletier, DOT employee Andrew DiDomenico and Diaz-Nieves – have died while working on Connecticut roads in the past five weeks, DOT data shows. That's the same number of work zone deaths for all of 2022 and 2023.

Tommy Nguyen, the driver of the car that killed the 54-year-old construction worker, claims in his defense that he was having an epileptic seizure at the time of the incident. He is scheduled to appear in court on July 8.