Andrew Pestano

Survivor Files Lawsuit After Bridge Collapse Crushes Car

What to Know

  • The FIU bridge collapse on March 15 killed six people and injured numerous others.
  • Several lawsuits have been filed over the collapse of the 950-ton bridge.

Engineers and inspectors at the site of the FIU bridge collapse continue their work as even more litigation is being taken against the firms in charge of the bridge. One woman who was driving on Calle Ocho as the bridge came down on her vehicle, fortunately, got out alive.

Katrina Collazo De Armas filed the latest legal action.

"The bridge crashing on my car – completely damaging all the back part of my car including my daughter's car seat. And as soon as I saw that, it was incredible that she was not there," De Armas said.

Her 3-year-old daughter was in school at the time and thankfully not with her mother, but De Armas can’t stop thinking about it.

“I am so grateful right now that my daughter was not in that car that day because if not, she wouldn’t be here today," De Armas said.

DeArmas was trapped in her vehicle at first, but two members of the construction team came rushing in to get the door open and paramedics stabilized her and rushed her to the hospital.

“This has been something that I can’t even begin to explain how dramatic the situation has been,” De Armas said.

De Armas wants answers and wants to know what went so terribly wrong.

“So many things that all of this has caused and just because of not wanting to close that road or whatever other things that they didn’t do correctly that day," De Armas said.

She hired Coral Gables attorney Spencer Aronfeld to get to the bottom of it. The lawsuit claims those in the bridge project were negligent in their duties. Aronfeld said he wants to find out if profit was placed above safety when it comes to the tragedy.

“I want to find out what kind of enumeration, what kind of bonuses may have been given to have this bridge put up so quickly in spite of what appeared to be safety issues and we believe in this case, and in other cases, profit was put ahead of the safety of the people,” Aronfeld stated.

The firms sued in each of these legal actions this week aren’t saying anything about the allegations. Questions continue to swirl about as the NTSB is investigating, police is looking into the tragedy and now another lawsuit has been filed.

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