DENVER — A federal judge this week awarded $10.5 million to the family of a Denver woman who was killed when a metal gate at Utah’s Arches National Park swung open, impaled her car and decapitated her.
Esther Nakajjigo, a 25-year-old Ugandan activist who had moved to Colorado in 2019 to attend the Watson Institute in Boulder, died June 13, 2020, while visiting the park with her husband of two months, Ludovic Michaud.
The couple was driving out of the park and passing by a metal pipe gate when one arm of the gate was dislodged by a gust of wind and swung into the car’s path. In less than a second, the metal pole went through the car’s front windshield and killed Nakajjigo, who was sitting in the passenger seat.
