[ Evidently this is becoming more common, sadly. See https://tinyurl.com/ypczpafx ]

From: https://tinyurl.com/yckukbrt (jsonline.com)

===
Rhode Island man clung to Kilbourn Avenue Bridge railing before losing grip,
falling to death, report says

Sophie Carson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A 77-year-old Rhode Island man was vacationing in Milwaukee with his wife
when he died in a gruesome fall as a downtown bridge opened, authorities
said.

Richard Dujardin of Providence, Rhode Island, is seen in an undated family
photo. Dujardin died when he fell from the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge in
Milwaukee as it was opening.

As more details emerged Tuesday about the man's death, questions remained
as to how the bridge operator - controlling it remotely - could have
missed the man on the bridge in surveillance video. He is now on leave.

Just after noon Monday, Richard Charles Dujardin, a former religion
reporter who lived in Providence, Rhode Island, was crossing the Kilbourn
Avenue Bridge over the Milwaukee River with his wife, Rose-Marie,
according to a report from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office.

Richard was looking at an iPad while walking, the report said.

Rose-Marie made it all the way across the bridge to its east side, and
Richard was still in the middle of the bridge when it began to rise,
according to the medical examiner.

"The lights, bells, and arms came down at each end of the bridge,
however Richard was hard of hearing and it is thought that he didn't
notice them," the report said.

Police officers close off access to the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge after a
77-year-old man was found dead on the bridge Monday afternoon.

Dujardin, who also walked slowly and used a hearing aid, tried to catch up
to his wife when the bridge began to open, but he couldn't make it to her
in time. He grabbed onto the side railing and held on for one to two
minutes as the bridge continued to rise, the report said.

He held on as the bridge deck rose to a 90-degree angle but eventually
lost his grip and fell 71 feet to the concrete street behind him, the
report said.

Dujardin suffered head trauma and died from his injuries at the scene, the
medical examiner said.

Witnesses on Monday said police performed CPR when they responded to the
scene. Paramedics also used a defibrillator to try to revive him.

The Dujardins were in Milwaukee on vacation and were staying at a hotel
downtown. They were supposed to fly home Monday, the report said.

This is the Milwaukee Kilbourn Avenue Bridge along West Kilbourn Avenue
where a Rhode Island man died Monday, Aug. 15, 2022, as the bridge was
going up.

Remote bridge operator on leave

Milwaukee police on Tuesday said they did not suspect the bridge operator
had committed a crime, but an investigation remained ongoing.

The medical examiner's report said detectives were planning to interview
the operator.

Jerrel Kruschke, interim commissioner of public works, said the operator
"was fully trained and in his fourth year as a bridge operator having
conducted hundreds of bridge openings."

"He is currently on leave following this incident and was connected with
the City's Employee Assistance Program for counseling," Kruschke said in a
statement.

A car passes over the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge.

The Kilbourn Avenue Bridge is operated remotely from the Water Street
Bridge house.

The operator must check two cameras with live footage of the bridge before
opening it, the medical examiner's report said.

"It seems weird that they wouldn't have seen that there was still a person
halfway on the bridge when they were opening it," said Cheryl Nenn,
riverkeeper for the Milwaukee Riverkeeper, an advocacy group for the
Milwaukee River Basin.

About half the 20 movable bridges in the city are operated remotely, the
Department of Public Works said.

Remotely operating bridges is "a safe and standard industry practice,"
Kruschke said.

A drawbridge goes back down after a boat passes through along East
Kilbourn Avenue on the Milwaukee River in Milwaukee on Monday, Aug. 8,
2022.

In 2021, the city recorded more than 27,700 openings at its movable
bridges. That's up 19% from 2017, according to DPW data.

And the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge has seen an 87% rise in openings since
2017. The boost is in part due to a boat line that moved farther up the
river last year, according to Urban Milwaukee. Five additional bridges now
stand between the Milwaukee Boat Line and Lake Michigan, including
Kilbourn.

Nenn pointed out the thousands of annual bridge openings and said
incidents like this, while tragic, are rare.

"In general, they seem to operate those bridges very efficiently and
well," she said. "I've never heard of something like this happening."

Nenn said she hasn't heard complaints about the bridge operators
previously but welcomed an investigation into the safety measures in
place.

"Clearly, they're going have to examine what happened and make sure that
there's additional safety precautions to ensure this doesn't happen
again," she said.

Nenn also noted that pedestrians should wait until the traffic gates
reopen to begin crossing the bridge again. She's noticed that sometimes
pedestrians start to cross when the bridge looks like it's down, but
bridge operators need to do some final jostling.

Dujardin was a longtime religion reporter

Dujardin reported on religion for the Providence Journal newspaper in
Rhode Island for 36 years, according to the Religion News Association.

He won the association's lifetime achievement award in 2015 and served as
its president in the 1990s.

"Dujardin traveled widely to cover Pope John Paul II, interviewed a future
pope and a past U.S. president, covered Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and
the Dalai Lama," an article posted to the association's website read.

Dujardin was born in 1944 in New York City and attended high school on
Long Island and college at Fordham University.

He began working at the Providence Journal after graduation in 1966 before
joining the U.S. Naval Reserve as an officer for three years. He returned
to the paper and in 1977 became the religion reporter.

"Religion writing, as most of us in the field know, is a satisfying
experience," Dujardin told the Religion News Association when he received
the lifetime achievement award.

"It allows us to ask important questions that most other reporters usually
ignore, allowing us to ask people about their faith lives and to see what
really makes them tick. As it is, a lot of motivation behind the good
things people do springs from their faith and from the way they perceive
God."

Dujardin and his wife, Rose-Marie, had six children.

Bascule bridges operate like a seesaw

The city's 20 movable bridges include 13 bascule bridges.

The Milwaukee Riverkeeper describes the movement of the seesaw-like
bascule bridge this way: it has "a roadbed that swings upward and is
continuously balanced by a counterweight."

The upward rotation is facilitated by a gear underneath the bridge called
a pinion.

An early bascule bridge was the medieval drawbridge. It "provided a water
crossing and an effective barricade when raised," the Riverkeeper said on
its website.

The Kilbourn Avenue Bridge was completed in 1929. It was restored in 2008. ===

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