National Park Service faces $270M wrongful death claim after Uganda woman decapitated by gate

Esther Nakajjigo was a human rights activist who at the age of 17, started a nonprofit community health care centre providing free reproductive health services to girls and young women

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The National Park Service is facing a $270 million wrongful death and personal injury claim from the family of a women's rights activist from Uganda who was decapitated by an unsecured metal at Utah’s Arches National Park in June.

Newlyweds Esther Nakajjigo, 25, and Ludovic Michaud, 26, were driving through the park during a camping trip when a metal gate, pushed by strong winds, sliced through the side of their car "like a hot knife through butter," according to the claim filed in October. 

The gate narrowly missed Michaud, who is originally from Paris but now lives in Denver.  He is seeking a little more than $240 million in damages. Nakajjigo's parents are seeking $30 million.

The National Park Service and Arches National Park are accused of not securing the gate, which was installed to swing in the wrong direction and was being held open by a "flimsy metal tab" that was "worn down and rounded," the claim says.

The Independent has reached out to the National Park Service but has not heard back at the time of publication.

Attorney Deborah Chang, who filed the claim on behalf of Michaud and Nakajjigo's parents, wrote that employees "knew or should have known that winds strong enough to carve stone are certainly strong enough to blow an unrestrained metal pipe gate into the path of an oncoming vehicle."

She plans on filing a formal lawsuit if the claim is rejected.

Nakajjigo was born in Kampala, Uganda and, at the age of 17, started a nonprofit community health care centre providing free reproductive health services to girls and young women. The United Nations Population Fund gave her a Woman Achiever Award and she was named Uganda's Ambassador for Women and Girls at the ceremony.

Nakajjigo was offered a full scholarship to the Watson Institute in Boulder, Colourado, and started a social entrepreneurship programme in early 2019. She and Michaud were married in March, and the two travelled to Arches to celebrate the one-year anniversary of when they first met.

"The most important thing for me is to try continuing what she's done," Michaud said. "She's got quite a few projects started, and we need to make sure those projects survive after her. ... A lot of people just want to continue that because that's what she would have wanted from us."