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Oct 26, 2007 6:08 pm US/Central
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Reality Check: I-35W Bridge Victims' Fund
(WCCO)
A Minnesota legislative committee will meet
next month to begin discussing details of a possible 35W bridge victims'
compensation fund, including trying to figure out how much money will go to
victims and why the state needs to create a fund like this.
Some of the bridge
survivors say they have medical bills exceeding $1 million, each, and that's
important.
"The financial
impact is, I can't even wrap my head around it," said 35W bridge victim
Mercedes Gorden.
HERE'S WHY. The state of Minnesota limits to $1 million the amount of
money it will pay for any single incident like this, for which it is at fault.
That means the
families of the 13 dead and 100 injured would split all that money, which comes
to $8,849.55 each.
That's one third
the cost of a replacing a car that fell off the bridge and it's less than the cost of a funeral.
Here's what you
NEED TO KNOW. The 35W compensation fund
is patterned after a similar fund for the victims of Sept. 11, 2001.
Like them, 35W
victims who use the fund to get state money would give up their rights to file
any lawsuits later.
How much money
would they get?
"One thing that
we can do is make sure the failure of this bridge is not a financial burden on
these individuals," said Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley.
That's the big
UNKNOWN. There's no dollar figure
attached to the 35W compensation fund.
We do know that
civilians killed or seriously injured on Sept. 11, 2001 received an average of
$3.1 million. Some of that came from the
9/11 fund, but also from insurance payments and charities.
That's Reality
Check.
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