DRAWBRIDGE TENDER LIED ABOUT THE DEATH OF 79-YEAR-OLD GRANDMOTHER

Officials: Florida drawbridge tender lied to police after 79-year-old woman's deadly fall

 

By Taylor Lang and Chelsea Robinson

 

WESH

March 18, 2022

 

 

Florida bridge operator Lafay Paulk was charged with the death of 79-year-old Carol Wright

 

PALM BEACH, Fla. — New details have been released in the arrest of a Florida drawbridge tender in connection with the death of a 79-year-old West Palm Beach woman who fell from the Royal Park Bridge.

West Palm Beach police told WESH sister station WPBF that Artissua Lafay Paulk, 43, of Greenacres, was arrested on one count of manslaughter by culpable negligence.

Police said she was taken into custody Thursday with the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service around noon. The Greenacres woman was taken to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Main Detention Center.

Court documents show Paulk lied during her statements to police, and conspired with her supervisor before deleting text messages between the two.

The text messages, which were all deleted, are as follows:

3:20 p.m. from supervisor: "When they talk to you make (expletive) sure you tell them you walked outside on balcony 3 diff times to make sure no one was past gates n delete this msg after one time to make sure card (sic) stop 2nd time after gates lowered and 3rd time before you raised spans (sic) ok now delete this I know ur upset but u gotta tell them step by step how u do opening"

3:21 p.m. to supervisor: "I did"

3:59 p.m. from supervisor: "You have to write out step by step what you did ok up till time you were told someone fell"

A text message sent to another person at 3:44 p.m. that says," I'm here with the police I killed a lady on the bridge."

 

Carol Wright, who fell off the drawbridge, is pictured with her grandchild

 

According to court documents, Paulk told police that when a boat requested the bridge be raised around 1 p.m., she turned the traffic lights red and went to the balcony to make sure traffic had stopped and there were no pedestrians on the bridge.

However, surveillance video showed that the only time during Paulk's shift that someone went out on the balcony was at 8:08 a.m., 8:59 a.m., and 9:03 a.m. Officials say the door to the balcony doesn't open at any other point during the shift.

Wight fell to her death during the 1 p.m. opening.

In addition to the discrepancies on how often Paulk was on the balcony, officials say she only logged four of the six bridge openings for the day.

Paulk's actions showed "reckless disregard of human life and the safety of a person, specifically Carol Wright, who was exposed to its dangerous effects which resulted in Carol Wright's death," court documents stated. Paulk "consciously followed a course of conduct that she must have known or should reasonably should have known was likely to cause death or great bodily injury."

Paulk made her first court appearance Friday. She was given a $20,000 bond and ordered not to have contact with witnesses or the victim's family.

The victim's family lawyer, Lance Ivey, said earlier he did not believe Paulk's account to the police was true.

"Did she walk on the balcony and not look --I don’t know but I think the facts are going to reveal that she did not even walk out on the balcony one time or three times or not at all," said Ivey.

Ivey said early on he felt something went wrong and that the tragedy was preventable.

"The bridge tender didn't do the bare minimum," Ivey said. "They pinned her in there. There's nothing she could do.... Our goal is this will never, ever, ever happen to another family."

Tragic accident details

Investigators said Wright, a West Palm Beach resident, was walking her bicycle in the pedestrian lane of the Royal Park Bridge connecting the town of Palm Beach to West Palm Beach around 1 p.m. on Feb. 6. She was coming from the island to the city of West Palm Beach when the incident happened.

According to a news release from police, the woman was approximately 10 feet from the westernmost section of the elevating bridge span, approaching the stationary segment of the bridge when she attempted to hold on to a railing, then lost her grip and fell about 50 feet to 60 feet to her death.

A skateboarder on the fixed span tried to help but could not reach her.

"There was a man who tried to help this woman as she was holding on to the elevated bridge, but unfortunately he was not able to rescue her,” said Mike Jachles, public information officer for the West Palm Beach Police Department.

Ivey said the witness ran to the bridgetender's office and banged on the door but there was no answer. The witness reportedly told Ivey that Wright was "begging for her life," but that he could not save her.

"Unfortunately and tragically, she fell, landing about 50 to 60 feet below, where the mechanical parts to the bridge are, and she died on impact," Jachles said.

The bridge remained closed for six hours while the on-scene investigation was conducted.

 

  Investigators at the scene of the tragedy

            When the drawbridge began rising with the 79-year-od bicyclist still on it, police said the woman tried to hold on but fell 60 feet to her death

 

Investigators said the Florida Department of Transportation contracts a company called Florida Drawbridge, Inc. to be the bridge tenders. Neither the Florida Department of Transportation nor Florida Drawbridge Inc. has provided a comment.

"There are crossing arms," Jachles said. "There are warning signs and there are safety procedures in place for the bridge tenders to follow, with multiple steps and multiple layers of checking to make sure that there are no cars or people on the bridge when it goes up."

Other bridge incidents

Since Wright's tragic fall, other incidents involving Florida's bridges have come to light.

In Daytona Beach, video showed a motorcyclist crashing through a lowered traffic arm, fell or jumped off his bike, and the motorcycle ended up dangling over the river by its trailer.

Another video from North Palm Beach showed a bicyclist hanging from a drawbridge as it rose with him on it.

In Lantana, a bridge tender was fired after a bridge rose with a car still on it. The driver initially tried to get out of the car as the bridge was going up, but the vehicle began to move, so the driver got back inside and the vehicle slid down the bridge to rest on all four wheels.