Family of construction worker killed in bridge collapse at Wake Tech speaks out
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Sonia Lopez's limited English couldn't convey the grief she feels after the death of her husband, 42-year-old Jose Luis Rosales-Nava. So she spoke with reporters in Spanish Saturday morning about the man she loved, killed when a pedestrian bridge he and others were building collapsed on Wake Tech's North Campus Thursday.
"My husband was very friendly, he liked to work, he was dedicated to his job," she said, choking back tears. "When he didn't have a job he'd get frustrated."
Lopez said her husband was an architect in Mexico who worked hard after moving to North Carolina. She broke down while describing the grieving family he leaves behind.
"They know that they're never going to get to see him again, and they have to accept that he's not going to be here with us," she said.
They have three children, two boys and a girl - 17, 10 and 7 years old.
"My brother was a good person. He was older than me, my mother's first son. We feel a great loss, especially his children and his mom, and my sister in law who lost her husband," said Gloria Rosales, Rosales-Nava's sister.
Lopez said the work site was supposed to be safe.
"Unfortunately, he lost his life at work. He went to work where supposedly the day before they had passed inspection. If that inspection had in fact passed, then the bridge would not have come down by a bit of concrete being laid," she said.
Now his survivors prepare for a grim journey back to Mexico for his funeral, after a mass for him Sunday in Sanford.
