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The family of an American who drowned after falling from a collapsed bridge says he died because Google didn’t update its maps.
Philip Paxson’s family is suing the company over his death, claiming Google was negligent in failing to prove that the bridge collapsed nine years earlier.
Paxson died in September 2022 after attempting to drive over the damaged bridge in Hickory, North Carolina.
A Google spokesman said the company was investigating the allegations. The case was filed Tuesday (Sept. 19) in Wake County Civil Court.
Paxson, a father of two daughters, was returning home from his daughter’s 9th birthday party, which was held at a friend’s house.
According to the family’s lawyer, he was in an unknown area at the time of his death.
His wife had brought the two children home early and he stayed behind to help clean up.
“Unfamiliar with local roads, he relied on Google Maps in the hope that it would guide him safely home to his wife and daughters,” the family’s attorneys said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Tragically, while driving carefully in the dark and rain, he followed outdated Google directions to what the family later described as a ‘bridge to nowhere’ and plunged into Snow Creek, where he drowned.”
Residents repeatedly asked Google to change their online maps after the bridge collapsed in 2013, the lawsuit says.
According to the local publication Charlotte Observer, barriers that were normally placed at the bridge’s entrance have disappeared due to vandalism.
The lawsuit also sues three local companies, saying they have a duty to maintain the bridge.
“Our girls ask how and why their father died, and I am at a loss for words to understand them,” the victim’s wife, Alicia Paxson, said in a statement.
“As an adult, I still cannot understand how those responsible for the GPS directions and the bridge could have so little regard for human life.”
The company officially expressed its opinion. “We extend our deepest condolences to the Paxson family,” a Google spokesperson told AP News.
“Our goal is to provide accurate route information on Maps and we are reviewing this process.”
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