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 ...
Later, however, she reportedly texted a friend: 'I’m here with the police I killed a lady on the bridge.' And she also reportedly told her supervisor - who also happens to be her mother-in-law - that she lied to the police before deleting the messages, Fox 13 reported.
I’m guessing a cellphone and perhaps an engrossing video at the time of the accident.
Angry bureaucrat taught that slothful bitch a lesson.
I knew I didn’t have to look but I did anyway.
Hate crime…. Where is Sharpton?
Right, the pitot tubes were iced over, causing the air data computer to receive erratic and inaccurate information. That caused the fly by wire system to revert to alternate law and the autopilot to disengage. The crew started getting an over speed warning (which was wrong), and so they decreased thrust and when that didn’t seem to work, raised the nose to try to slow the aircraft down. Problem was, they weren’t flying too fast at all, and decreasing thrust slowed them down too much, and pulling back on the yoke put them into a stall. They held the aircraft in a stall all the way to the ocean surface, when if they had just left the controls alone the aircraft would have remained stable and the airspeed within a safe range.
It was a stunning failure to recognize what was happening and apply some basic logic. The initial indications were confusing, but when you’re doing the same thing (reduced thrust and yoke back in your lap) for several minutes and things aren’t getting any better, that’s a good indication that you might want to reconsider your initial assumption and try something different. One of the conclusions was that because of the automation the crew was not proficient in basic airmanship.
Drugged up low IQ unqualified animal in charge of opening and closing a bridge. Anyone else see something wrong with this picture? And nepotism, too!!
No-contact with whom?
Apparently the family of the victim & witnesses:
Also this in the above linked article: “The affidavit also shows that Paulk’s supervisor — who is also her mother-in-law — told her to tell police that she checked the bridge.
“When they talk to you, make dam sure you tell them you walked outside the balcony 3 diff times to make sure no one was past gates n delete this msg...” Paulk’s supervisor texted her on Feb. 6, the date of Wright’s death.”
Sounds like MiL should be charged too. Whether that will happen or not depends on how woke the DA is.
That will only go so far until the backlash is severe. When that happens, only time will tell. White people seem exceptionally naive lately.
www.google.com/maps/place/Royal+Park+Bridge,+Florida/@26.7060234,-80.0476092,349
Is the part that actually opens up less than 200 ft?
(It looks that way to me)
The entire bridge appears to be over 800 ft.
Is the bridgetender stationed at that structure at:
26.70578760285941 N, -80.04665280512958 W?
How quickly does the bridge rise?
Another issue from that flight is that the Airbus control yokes (or sidesticks) are not mechanically connected together like they are on a Boeing. One pilot was pushing forward on the yoke (the correct action) and the other was pulling back (incorrect). Apparently there was confusion as to who was “flying” the aircraft. The Airbus system sums the inputs from the two sticks and since they were in opposite directions, they were actually cancelling out each other.
You’re right. I forgot about that aspect of the accident.
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