JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The attorney for a woman badly hurt on a bridge neighbors say is dangerous is speaking out. Action News Jax has been pushing for answers about the lack of light on the Wonderwood Bridge for over a week.
Kelly Lund is facing a long list of life-altering injuries after she was hit by an e-bike rider in Wonderwood. Her attorney, Curry Pajcic Sr., describes them.
“She has multiple facial fractures. The top of her face is broken off from the bottom of her face. She almost lost her eye. They’re hoping to save her eye; she’s had surgery on her eye. Her right leg was crushed; she had plates and screws inserted into her leg to hold it back together,” Pajcic said.
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Pajcic takes issue with how it happened, and Action News Jax is learning more about how where it happened also played a role.
“He was driving 35 miles an hour on a sidewalk in a dark area. He could have killed a child. This is a grown woman with three teenage children who’s now incapacitated three surgeries later,” Pajcic said.
A police report on Lund’s crash says JSO was flagged down on the Wonderwood Bridge on Oct. 17 around 9 p.m. It says the driver was riding his e-bike over a dark part of the bridge and that many of the lights do not work.
Action News Jax reported last week about safety concerns on the Wonderwood Bridge, and FDOT said it’s because of stolen copper wire.
“Our lights that we have to protect our people, yeah, there are thieves out there stealing copper from these lights. They need to be caught and prosecuted,” Pajcic said.
That leaves questions about who’s responsible for getting the lights back on.
“Maybe we need cameras to monitor these bridges to show these people who are stealing, and they need to be prosecuted and put in jail for stealing from the public,” Pajcic said.
Action News Jax reached out jointly to JEA, the city of Jacksonville and FDOT for a response on both the crash and whether the lights would be turned back on. JEA says it had not received requests to restore the lights.
“For information regarding the reported incident, including the circumstances surrounding it, please direct your inquiries to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office... FDOT continues to work with its partners to address the outage and identify a long-term solution,” FDOT said in part.
Action News Jax also reached out to JSO for comment on the crash and is still waiting to hear back. None of the agencies or offices have been able to tell Action News Jax if there are long-term solutions to get the lights back on for good.
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