FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Drawbridge tender Artiussa Paulk tried to “hijack the truth,” creating a false narrative when she told police blame falls squarely on Carol Wright, the woman who in February plunged to her death after Paulk opened the drawbridge she was crossing, Wright’s family attorney said.
But police found no evidence that Wright darted under the crossing gate with her bicycle nor was the 79-year-old bending over to grab a cellphone, as Paulk claimed to police, effectively placing Wright in danger and out of Paulk’s sight. The bridge tender also falsely claimed to police to have walked around the balcony of the bridge tower multiple times to make sure the movable spans were cleared of people and cars before raising the bridge, attorney Lance Ivey said Monday when he announced he filed a wrongful death suit against Paulk and the company that hired her, Florida Drawbridges, Inc.
Wright, who would have turned 80 next month, was considered a pioneering journalist for her time. She spent many years at the Palm Beach Daily News, known locally as the Shiny Sheet.
“(She was) iron-willed and a reliable person. And she always had something of value to add to a conversation. She was a quiet giver,” Ivey said. “... On Feb. 6 2022, all those attributes were stolen, stolen from Carol, stolen from the family in a painful, disturbing and violent way.
“And within moments as Carol lies on the concrete surface below, a scheme was hatched to hijack the truth about what really happened. An attempt to perpetuate a fraud to change the legacy of everything that Carol earned for 79 years,” Ivey said. “That scheme was that the bridge tender followed all safety protocols to the letter T. And that Carol through her own recklessness caused her own death.”
The suit not only seeks monetary damages, but also seeks changes in policies and procedures to prevent another deadly tragedy.
Paulk was arrested March 15 on a manslaughter with culpable negligence charge. Last week, the South Florida Sun Sentinel detailed how Paulk’s false narrative unraveled after police in West Palm Beach scoured through hours of bridge surveillance videos and obtained a search warrant to review Paulk’s text messages.
“This story appeared to go as planned until an elite group of investigators got involved. That was the beginning of the end of this hoax,” Ivey said.
What investigators learned was that Paulk never stepped outside the bridge tender’s tower to visually scan the Royal Park Bridge before opening it just after 1 p.m. on Feb. 6, and that Paulk never announced the bridge was opening nor were the lights and crossing gates activated as Wright was crossing on the movable part of the bridge in direct line of sight of the tower. After Wright plunged about 60 feet to her death, police records say Paulk was instructed by her supervisor to lie about her actions before opening the bridge and to delete the text messages. Those deleted messages were retrieved.
Paulk and her supervisor Kathie Harper were fired the day after the newspaper’s report.
Ivey said he spoke with former bridge tenders at Florida Drawbridges and that helped him formulate a list of proposed changes. “We’ve learned that it’s not the waters, but the bridges that are troubling this paradise,” Ivey said.
The suit is asking Florida Drawbridges to:
—Ensure that bridge tenders are using intercom announcements and visually inspecting the bridges prior to opening and that there is increased supervision of bridge tenders.
—Install sensors that are similar to a safety mechanism on garage doors, to detect the presence of a person or object in harm’s way.
—Increase the education, training, experience, benefits and pay of bridge tenders to make it more commiserate with the importance of the job.
—Hire additional well-qualified bridge tenders so they are not compelled to work multiple shifts in a row nor required to work more than seven days in a row without a day off.
—Encourage and support legislation that would create additional policies, procedures, penalties and oversight for the operation of drawbridges.
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