Liberal Woman Crushed to Death in Freak Drawbridge Accident

[Bob Stewart]

(NEWSER) – A horrific accident in Boston, where a woman was
crushed to death in a freak drawbridge accident yesterday. The
woman was walking over the Meridian Street bridge when it was
raised for a boat; the bridge operator heard her screaming and
lowered the bridge—but the woman, clinging to one of the two
plates of the bridge and dangling over the water, was then
crushed when it closed.

Officials are mystified as to how the accident happened. The
victim "was in an area where pedestrians should not be when the
bridge is raised," says the police superintendent-in-chief.
Among the questions, according to WCVB and the Boston Globe:
whether safety gates were down and whether the victim had
ignored warning lights or alarms before entering the bridge.

Locals are similarly baffled, and many say pedestrians are given
sufficient warning before the bridge opens. "I walk over it
every day," one tells the Boston Herald. "If you try to cross
while they’re trying to operate the bridge, the [operator] will
lay on the air horn like crazy."

An investigation has been opened; the police spokesperson says
the woman "was in a blind spot where [the operator] could not
see her." Divers searched for her body for more than two and a
half hours in Chelsea Creek, a Mystic River offshoot, but it was
ultimately found on a concrete beam beneath the bridge.

"I don’t know how she ended up there," says the deputy fire
chief. "It was a very precarious place to reach." (In another
recent tragedy, a new bride was killed in a car crash as she
left her own wedding reception.)

[Bill Steele]

Post by Bob Stewart
(NEWSER) – A horrific accident in Boston, where a woman was
crushed to death in a freak drawbridge accident yesterday. The
woman was walking over the Meridian Street bridge when it was
raised for a boat; the bridge operator heard her screaming and
lowered the bridge—but the woman, clinging to one of the two
plates of the bridge and dangling over the water, was then
crushed when it closed.
Officials are mystified as to how the accident happened. The
victim "was in an area where pedestrians should not be when the
bridge is raised," says the police superintendent-in-chief.
whether safety gates were down and whether the victim had
ignored warning lights or alarms before entering the bridge.
Locals are similarly baffled, and many say pedestrians are given
sufficient warning before the bridge opens. "I walk over it
every day," one tells the Boston Herald. "If you try to cross
while they’re trying to operate the bridge, the [operator] will
lay on the air horn like crazy."
An investigation has been opened; the police spokesperson says
the woman "was in a blind spot where [the operator] could not
see her." Divers searched for her body for more than two and a
half hours in Chelsea Creek, a Mystic River offshoot, but it was
ultimately found on a concrete beam beneath the bridge.
"I don’t know how she ended up there," says the deputy fire
chief. "It was a very precarious place to reach." (In another
recent tragedy, a new bride was killed in a car crash as she
left her own wedding reception.)

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