HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — Friends and family are paying tribute to a 41-year-old Army veteran killed Saturday morning while riding his motorcycle through a construction zone on I-295 near Richmond International Airport. Thecrash killed Texas native Joshua Ballard and seriously injured a female passenger.
Fellow motorcyclist, Jason Crockett, says Ballard loved wearing the badge of the Infidels Motorcycle Club, a group of former combat veterans who rode together as friends and comrades.
“(He was a) good man, good soldier, did multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve literally seen him give the shirt off his back for a brother or somebody he cared about,” Crockett said.
Virginia State Police said Ballard was killed riding his Harley Davidson Saturday morning around 10:40 a.m. while traveling north on Interstate 295 near the 31-mile marker.
Ballard’s sister, Katreena Sanford, said she’ll never forget the call from VCU Medical Center stating that Ballard had been brought to the hospital with severe injuries to his head and body.
“I just started saying ‘I don’t want to hear, no, no, no, please don’t tell me,” Sanford said. “She said ‘I hate to be the one to tell you but your brother, Josh, was in a motorcycle wreck and he didn’t make it.’”
His family said investigators told them that Ballard’s motorcycle struck a 3 to 4-inch exposed lip between the lanes where resurfacing work was taking place. A 26-year-old female passenger was also thrown from the motorcycle and sustained serious injuries.
Ballard’s mother, Carolyn Ballard, said her son was a loyal person and was hoping to return home to Texas in a few years to be closer to his two teenage sons.
Ballard was stationed in Virginia while working as a helicopter mechanic and was most recently employed by American Airlines.
“I worried all the time when he was in the Army that something would happen to my son and I got him back and I thought, oh man, he made it, he made it. I still have my son, my baby, and then he comes home and dies on a roadway,” Carolyn Ballard said.
Ballard’s sister said investigators also told her about other motorcycle crashes in the area.
Virginia State Police confirmed to CBS 6 that another motorcycle crash occurred just a few hours after Ballard’s crash on Saturday in the same location. Henrico Police responded to a similar motorcycle accident on Thursday morning. Ballard’s accident was the only fatality.
Crockett said he doesn’t believe Ballard was at fault.
“Due to the fact that I had spoken to one of my other members who had been on the road the night before and after it happened, he told me there was no signage anywhere,” Crockett said. “He hit one of those lips, he was actually going off the lip and he was able to maintain his motorcycle and keep it going but he said it came out of nowhere.”
Crockett said his motorcycle nation plans to drive Ballard’s remains back home to Texas next month and hoped other motorcyclists take caution when riding near construction zones.
Virginia State Police said several pictures were taken of warning signs on I-295 but an investigation is ongoing. Crockett said he saw several signs warning motorcyclists of uneven roadways on Sunday but was unsure those signs were in place prior to Ballard’s crash.
Ballard’s family said they wanted to spread awareness about unsafe road conditions so that other families don’t experience their grief.
They said they never imagined Ballard’s trip home to Texas a few months ago, would be his last.
“You never know the last time you’re going to talk to him, and you don’t know if you told him you loved him,” Sanford says. “But I hope that he knew.”
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