Carol Wright, 75, was walking her bike across the bridge when the roadway started tilting.
A Florida drawbridge tender and her supervisor exchanged text messages about what to tell investigators after a pedestrian fell to her death from the rising bridge, says a police report that led to the arrest of one of the women and the firing of both.Artissua Paulk, 43, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of manslaughter by culpable negligence in the Feb. 6 death of Carol Wright on the Royal Park Bridge, which connects Palm Beach and West Palm Beach.
On Tuesday, the company Florida Drawbridges announced it had fired Paulk and her supervisor. The company’s statement said Paulk had failed to comply with operating procedures and the supervisor had violated the company’s ethics and document retention policies. Investigators who seized Paulk’s phone reported that they recovered three deleted messages sent by the supervisor on the afternoon of the death. One of them, according to the Miami Herald, said, in part: “Make dam sure you tell them you walked outside on balcony 3 diff times to make sure no one was past gates. … ok now delete this.”
Paulk did indeed tell police she had followed the protocol of stepping out on the balcony of the bridge tower three times to check traffic before opening the bridge at 1 p.m. But, the Herald said, surveillance video showed nobody had stepped onto the balcony since 9:03 a.m. Wright, 75, was walking her bike across the bridge when the roadway started tilting. She was about 10 feet from the stationary part of the bridge, and she tried to cling to the railing, but she slipped through the gap and fell 50 to 60 feet, police said. She died on impact.
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