A 25-year-old woman was tragically killed at Arches National Park in Utah when an unsecured metal gate swung into the road and hit the passenger side of the car she sat in with her new husband as they left the parking lot. Esther Nakajjigo was decapitated by the gate and now her family has filed a wrongful death suit against the park for negligence.
- It was truly a freak accident. Esther and her husband, 26-year-old Ludovic Michaud, were in their car and leaving the parking lot when a gust of wind took the metal gate off its hinges and slammed it at the car, impaling it. According to the claim obtained by NBC News, the couple was on their way to get ice cream when “the end of the lance-like gate pierced the side of their car and penetrated it like a hot knife through butter.”
- The couple visited the park to celebrate their anniversary. They had only just gotten married and decided to mark the anniversary of their first date by visiting the beauty spot. However, what was meant to be a happy occasion quickly turned into a nightmare.
- Esther’s family is seeking $270 million in damages. Ludovic hopes to receive $240 million while Esther’s family seeks $30 million in the wrongful death suit against Arches National Park. “The National Park Service has, in fact, known for decades that an unsecured metal pipe gate creates an undetectable hazard and dangerous condition,” the claim states, according to CBS Denver.
- They believe the park should have known better. Attorney Deborah Chang who works for the family said in the claim that the park has always used these kind of gates, which are incredibly dangerous and known to swing when the winds are high. “Employees knew or should have known that winds strong enough to carve stone are certainly strong enough to blow an unrestrained metal pipe gate into the path of an oncoming vehicle,” Chang wrote, according to The AP.
- Esther was making such a difference in the world. She was a humanitarian who started her own nonprofit healthcare center when she was 17 that helped provide reproductive healthcare services to young women and girls. She even won the Woman Achiever Award from the United Nations Population Fund and was named Uganda’s Ambassador for Women and Girls.
