Roughly nine years ago, Jake Schwab, an EMTA employee was killed when a bus he was repairing fell on him -- an accident that could have been prevented. So lawmakers then, pushed for legislation to ensure public-sector workers got the same safety protections as private workers.

The bill had support of Schwab's widow, Tiffany. Our Lisa Adams spoke with her eight years ago as she petitioned for it to pass.
"You like to think some good will come of a death like this, especially in a workplace and you hope to prevent another person from being hurt in a workplace and for families to go through the same grief we went through," said Tiffany Schwab in the interview with Lisa Adams from 2015.

Now, years later, it appears her hope may be renewed. Bill 299 calls for the same OSHA safety protections applied for private workers to be applied for public workers too. The bill passed the state house on Tuesday.

"Everybody likes to kind of put a cosmetic fix on these things, and hope that they go away. At the same time you're taking people's lives in jeopardy, or you're putting them in jeopardy, and those are the kind of things we're gonna try and prevent, and make it a safer worker environment for our public sector workers," State Representative Pat Harkins said.

It's been a long journey, to finally get this legislation through the house, and Representative Harkins has one word to describe the feeling.

"Euphoria. It's something that's been in the works for 8 years for me, . . . we compromised and we've worked with everybody," Harkins said.

The bill now heads to the senate and if passed, the governor's desk.

"We intend tomorrow to get with some senators, who are like minded . . .and united food and commercial workers called me congratulate me, and I just said . . ., you know it's a great victory, but we have to move quickly to try and get it fast tracked, and get it to the governor's office," Harkins said.