Victim of fatal Madison County crash remembered as skilled diesel mechanic, family man
Thomas Hughes approached a broken-down diesel engine like a family physician rooting out the cause of a nagging cough.
He was known to his regular customers at Tri-City Diesel in Godfrey as “T.J. the Diesel Man.”
“He loved vehicles and working on them, and he had a really keen mind,” said his wife, Amanda Spraggs-Hughes. “I work in the medical field and it is almost like a doctor diagnosing a patient, that’s how attuned he was with diesel engines.”
Family and friends were shocked when Hughes, 45, died on March 19 from injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident in Alton.
Hughes was traveling west on Illinois 140 near Gordon Moore Park in Alton when the pick-up truck he was driving veered off the right side of the roadway and hit a traffic light fixture head-on at around 1:53 a.m., according to a news release from the Alton Police Department.
He was transported to an Alton hospital, where he later died from his injuries. No other vehicles were involved in the crash.
A celebration of Hughes’ life will be held from 2-6 p.m. on April 2 at the Knights of Columbus, 1713 Stamper Lane in Godfrey. A memorial may be made to an account established for his daughters Hannah and Gabrielle at CNB Bank, 200 Homer M. Adams Parkway, Alton, Illinois, 62002.
Hughes was a self-made man, his wife said, starting Tri-City Diesel out of his garage in Bethalto in 2007. Business expanded within a few years and he moved it to its current location in Godfrey.
He was called “The Diesel Man” because he was so attuned with diesel engines that he could pinpoint a problem just from the sound it was making, his wife said.
Hughes specialized in complex diesel engine repairs and performance enhancements.
“He managed to gather a large following of customers because of his experimentation with different repair techniques,” Spraggs-Hughes said. “He was very proud of the business that he built from the ground up. His main business principle was to always treat the customer right.”
Hughes had other passions as well. He was an outdoors enthusiast and loved spending time with his teenage daughters, Hanna Grace, 18, and Gabrielle “Gabi” Ryleigh, 14.
They were “the joys of his life,” Spraggs-Hughes said.
“One particular memory that is special to Gabi – just because it would always make her father laugh – is when she would get him to order her favorite Starbucks drink, which is an iced vanilla latte with sweet cream cold foam and extra caramel drizzle,” she said. “He was just fun to be around. He loved his family and his girls and he loved his business.”
That’s not the person Spraggs-Hughes she met her future husband for the first time in 1996. She was not impressed by the exuberant personality he displayed in front of his friends and remembers thinking she could never date a guy like that.
“The first time I met him, I was with my cousin and he took us to play pool. He was there with his friends being boisterous and super sarcastic,” she said. “I think he was showing off for his buddies. I don’t know if he had ever met anybody like me, that had as quick a wit and mouth as he did. I gave him a couple of zingers back.
“But when we met (again) in 2002, it was just us two and we just sat down and talked about life. He actually asked me questions about me, which was pretty remarkable. It was different, the second meeting. The first one, not so great, but the second one, much better.”
This story was originally published March 29, 2022 at 2:17 PM.