Family of woman decapitated at Utah national park is now suing for $270 million

The family of a woman decapitated by a metal gate is suing Arches National Park in Utah for $270 million.

Ludovic Michaud has filed a lawsuit against the National Park Service after a June trip to the national park led to the tragic death of his wife, Esther Nakajjigo, The Associated Press reported. Wind caused a metal gate to hit the couple’s car, decapitating Nakajjigo.

“We just don’t want this to ever happen again,” Michaud said, according to the publication. He is seeking more than $240 million and Nakajjigo’s parents are seeking an additional $30 million in damages.

The lawsuit claims that the National Park Service has “known for decades that an unsecure metal pipe gate creates an undetectable hazard and dangerous condition,” CBS Denver reported. The lawsuit says that three others have died in incidents related to gates in the past 32 years.

“For the sake of a padlock and chain, that you have in your garage... that is all that would have made a difference in his world,” Deborah Chang, Michaud’s attorney, told Denver7.

Chang told the station that the gate shouldn’t have been allowed to “swing freely” and should’ve been fixed to swing inwards, not outwards toward oncoming traffic.

“For want of an $8 basic padlock, our world lost an extraordinary warrior for good,” according to the lawsuit, CBS Denver reported.

Nakajjigo was an activist in Uganda and was named the country’s ambassador for women and girls, NBC News reported. She launched two reality TV shows to empower women and had received awards for her work.

Michaud and Nakajjigo met in Colorado, where she had moved to attend a fellowship program, in 2019 and married in March during the pandemic, with plans for a wedding in Uganda once pandemic restrictions lifted, according to NBC.