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It was only a matter of time. The first of what promises to be many lawsuits related to the Fourth of July bridge collapse near Merrillville, Indiana has been filed. According to Fox 32:
Attorney Kenneth J. Allen said Wednesday he filed in Lake County on behalf of Gary, Ind., resident Treniece Campbell, 37, and her husband, Lawrence, 41. They are suing Ross Township and Ross Township Trustee John Rooda for $500,000.No one from Ross Township could be reached for comment.
Treniece Campbell attended the press conference in a wheelchair and said she was on pain medication for her fractured back.
Allen represents another injured person from the collapse but no suit has been filed on her behalf because a class-action suit could be on the way. Said Allen, "We haven't yet decided which cases we'll accept, but the important thing is it doesn't happen again. An investigation said the bridge collapsed because it was overloaded, and Allen is blaming that on police who were supposed to monitor groups going across the bridge: "They abandoned their posts as soon as the fireworks celebration was about to end."
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A rickety bridge has hundreds of people on it, with, according to reports, some yahoos jumping up and down and making it sway. And you CHOSE to get on the bridge when you could have waited for the crowds to clear. At what point does personal responsibility come into anything? And yes, I feel badly for people who got hurt, especially those without medical insurance, but people HAVE to take responsibility for their actions. Or better yet, ID the idiots who were jumping and making the bridge sway and sue their butts off.
I agree with ND Miss to a certain extent. People should accept responsibility for their own actions. Some blame should go to the bridge designers/structural engineers though. From what I understand, this bridge could only support about 40 people? Wouldn't you design it so that it would have a greater capacity then that just to be on the safe side?
This was clearly a design flaw. The bridge is 120 feet long. From the photograph above, the walkway appears to be about four or five feet wide ... enough for two people to walk comfortably side-by-side. But most reports I've read say there were about 80 people on the bridge. If these 80 people are walking single-file, that would mean each person would be a foot-and-a-half apart, with five feet on their side ... in other words, the space was far less congested than any reasonable person would expect after an event hosting 7,000 people. Compound this with the fact that the township admitted in media the bridge could only hold 40 people, or about 8000 pounds, and yet posted no advisories and took no steps in the middle of a crowded event to prevent it from being overloaded, and you have a clear indication of fault.
The best part about this 50+ year old bridge is it isn't even that much of a shortcut. The edge of the lake is about 500 feet north and would be easy to walk around. The bridge is superfluous and should have been torn down years ago.