NORFOLK, Va. -- Joseph Chen's wife called the 47-year-old Greenville, North Carolina truck driver an "awesome husband."
Chen died Thursday afternoon when his tractor trailer ran off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel near the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
Winds were howling at the time.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel later operated with level one wind restriction because winds were in excess of 40 miles per hour.
"He was off the chain," wife Billie Jo Chen told pilotonline.com. "He was an awesome husband."
Chen, who had two children from a previous marriage, was seen alive, after the crash, on top of the truck in the water.
He was rescued by a Navy Seahawk H-60 helicopter and flown to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
