MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – The family of Florida International University freshman Alexa Duran has filed a lawsuit in connection with last month's pedestrian bridge collapse.
Duran, 18, was the first of six people to be identified after the pedestrian bridge that connected FIU's main campus to the city of Sweetwater collapsed March 15.
"I don't know if I can face not having her," Alexa Duran's father, Orlando Duran, said Tuesday at a news conference. "Beyond my daughter, my little girl, she was a friend to me."
Alexa Duran was driving her SUV, with a friend in the front passenger seat, when the bridge came down on top of her vehicle, trapping her inside.
Duran's friend, Richard Humble, 19, was able to crawl out of the SUV. He was injured, but survived.
Humble also filed a lawsuit last week against the construction and engineering companies involved in the project.
His attorney said they also plan to sue FIU and the Florida Department of Transportation.
As for the Duran family, they are also suing the eight companies involved in the construction and design of the bridge.
"Our goal is to obtain full and complete justice," Duran family attorney Alan Goldfarb said. "This is a compounding of multiple errors, by multiple companies."
Goldfarb said the bridge collapse was outrageous and inexcusable.
The lawsuit they filed last Friday is the ninth filed on behalf of victims of the bridge collapse.
