The guardrail built in front of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd on Chapel Hill Road in 2009 was supposed to be located at least six feet off the curb. But because there were utility poles and a buried gas line in the way, the contractor built it right on the curb, blocking the vision of anyone in a sedan or small car – especially at night.
In a court deposition, Butch Thompson Enterprises contractor Mickey Chadwick was asked why he didn’t consult the project design engineer first.
“Time was money,” Chadwick said under oath. “We were just sittin’ there with people ready to do the work and we needed an answer.”
“I can’t think of a worse possible place to put this guardrail besides where they put it,” said attorney Jed Mandon with the firm Harris Penn Lowery and DelCampo.
In November 2009, 67-year old church volunteer Faye Bouchard was pulling out of the church driveway after a Thanksgiving dinner when there was a terrible wreck. Bouchard died hours later as a result, but Douglasville Police Officer Sam Crosley testified in deposition that he was able to talk with her before she was pulled from her demolished vehicle.
“She said she never saw (the car that hit her). She never saw him,” Crosley said.
Douglasville officials refused to move the guardrail. After a second wreck in the same spot, in which a young church member barely escaped with his life, Attorney Jed Mandon sued the city and its contractors on behalf of the Bouchard family. He won a $1.5 million settlement from the city and its contractors, along with a promise to move the guardrail “expeditiously.” But a month later, the guardrail has not been moved and church pastor Mike Bovingdon remains worried.
“We’re talking about human life here and we don’t want that to happen again,” Bovingdon said.
When WSB’s Pete Combs tried to ask Douglasville Mayor Harvey Persons why the guardrail still has not been moved and when that would happen, he was told the mayor was unavailable.