‘I killed a lady’: Florida drawbridge operator charged in death of 79-year-old woman
Posted on 03/19/2022 12:00:43 PM PDT by Morgana
A Florida bridgetender has been charged with manslaughter after allegedly raising a drawbridge connecting Palm Beach to Florida before a 79-year-old grandmother walking her bicycle reached the other side.
West Palm Beach police arrested Artissua Lafay Paulk 43, at her home on Thursday in connection to the death of Carol Wright, 79. Her bond is set at $20,000 and a judge issued a no-contact order on Friday, according to Fox 13.
Paulk is accused of opening the Royal Park Bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway on February 6 as the cyclist walked across, causing Wright to plunge 60 feet to her death.
The older woman was walking her bike from Palm Beach toward West Palm Beach around 1 p.m. and was within 10 feet of reaching the safety of the barrier arm that halts traffic when the drawbridge started to go up, police said.
A Good Samaritan, who witnessed the incident, raced to Wright's aid and tried to pull her to safety but lost his grip. She slipped through the gap formed by the rising bridge and the main roadway and desperately tried to cling on, before plunging more than five stories to the concrete base of the 1,238-foot span over the Intercoastal Waterway.
'The woman tried to hang on. There was a bystander nearby who tried to help her, but tragically she fell five or six stories below where she died landing on concrete,' West Palm Beach police spokesperson Mike Jachles said.
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) said in its report released Thursday that Paulk said she checked multiple times and did not see Wright before opening the span that afternoon.
Before raising the drawbridge, the tender is required to get multiple visual confirmations that the span is empty of cars and pedestrians, which the employee claimed she did.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
You’re right. Black = automatic innocence. And she rid the world of one more white devil.-sarc
Police: Bridge operator lied in death investigation, supervisor texted what to tell police
Are you joking?
Not just black but also a Haitian. How did she get that job?
Yep, the Air France A330 that plunged into the Atlantic several years ago showed exactly what can happen when the automation suddenly fails. The aircraft was still stable and flyable, but the pilots stalled it and kept stalling it until it hit the surface of the ocean. Because they spent little time acting as true airmen anymore, but instead had become systems managers, when the systems failed, they misinterpreted what they were seeing and did everything wrong. They crashed a plane that was in a perfectly safe condition.
Yeah, she can't see white.
Hi.
I heard that the bridge tender past a drug screening.
If true, then maybe the bridge tender knew the lady...
Or, she was in the bathroom?
Maybe even doing the horizontal bop with an accomplice?
Who knows?
5.56mm
Maybe it’s time to install handholds and footholds so that draw bridges don’t just become large slides. The holds can be recessed.
Bingo!
Average IQ in Haiti: 67
This sounds like a good case for an eye for an eye kind of justice.
“but the pilots stalled it and kept stalling it until it hit the surface of the ocean.”
After the captain returned, he recognized the problem and they attempted stall recovery but too late.
Interesting that the software changes operating modes and turns off stall warnings when the angle of ascent is too high.
Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes#Alternate_law
A net might work.
Thanks for the link. By mere inspection one can see that she is a dimwit. She should be back in Haiti with her own kind. Now she has to pay the price for killing an innocent person. I can't begin to imagine the terror her poor innocent victim must have felt as she plunged to her death.
“Yep, the Air France A330 that plunged into the Atlantic several years ago showed exactly what can happen when the automation suddenly fails. The aircraft was still stable and flyable, but the pilots stalled it and kept stalling it until it hit the surface of the ocean. Because they spent little time acting as true airmen anymore, but instead had become systems managers, when the systems failed, they misinterpreted what they were seeing and did everything wrong. They crashed a plane that was in a perfectly safe condition.”
There was high turbulence and freezing which caused the autopilot and some of the instruments not to work. It was a difficult situation, but the pilots did not seem to handle it well. Part of the problem was the only time they really had to fly it was in an emergency.
The pilots made mistakes, but it is different from here where a person of color at best didn’t check if there was anyone on the bridge.
Duhversity hire...
Artissua Lafay Paulk...
So, what else is new?
The one-sided internecine war continues...
It is good that times have changed. I wonder how they would have handled this in Florida 100 years ago. I guess then they had white male bridgetenders though.
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