Gary Burroughs doesn’t remember what it was like to become one of the more than 6,100 people injured in work zone accidents in Kansas during the past decade.

But he isn’t about to forget.

“A semi came over the top of the hill, and he wasn’t paying attention,” said Burroughs, an equipment operator for the Kansas Department of Transportation. “He was speeding, and overweight a little, and he hit it — he hit the back end of our truck.”

Burroughs gathered with about 50 KDOT co-workers and others Monday in Topeka to mark the beginning of National Work Zone Safety Awareness Week, a 10-year effort to educate drivers about the importance of taking special care when encountering projects lined with orange barrels and passing alongside people working in orange vests.

“Just imagine your office space, and a car moving through your office space at 70 miles an hour,” said Col. Terry Maple, superintendent of the Kansas Highway Patrol. “Give them room to work.”

Burroughs, for one, is pleased to have the support of both his own department and law enforcement. He remembers showing up for work Aug. 1, 2005, when he would be out working along Kansas Highway 130, just outside of Emporia.

Then came the semi. Burroughs, who wouldn’t remember anything for the next month, was later told he had been pinned beneath his KDOT truck. One of his co-workers died in the accident, one of at least 130 people who have been killed in work zone accidents in Kansas during the past 10 years.

Another KDOT colleague, Ty Corte, died in 2007 after being struck by a speeding pickup as he worked along U.S. Highway 59 south of Lawrence. Rolland Griffith, working as a contractor, died then, too.

Burroughs is hoping drivers will slow down, get off their cell phones and pay better attention as they move through orange barrels in the future.

“It really strikes home,” Burroughs said, surrounded by colleagues wearing orange vests. “People’s lives are in danger.”