Google Maps sued by family of North Carolina man who drove off collapsed bridge following directions

A North Carolina woman blames Google Maps for the death her husband last year after he drove his car off a collapsed bridge following directions from the GPS service. 

On the night of Sept. 30, 2022, medical device salesman Philip Paxson drowned after his vehicle plunged off a bridge in Hickory, North Carolina that collapsed in 2013, state highway patrol Master Trooper Jeffrey Swagger told USA TODAY last year.

In a negligence lawsuit filed against Google's parent company Alphabet Tuesday, Paxson's wife Alicia alleged that Google Maps directed him to cross the Snow Creek Bridge as he drove through an unfamiliar neighborhood heading home from his daughter's ninth birthday party.

The state troopers who found the body of the Navy veteran and father of two in an upside down and partially submerged truck said he drove off an unguarded edge crashing 20 feet below, the court filing states. The troopers added there were no warning signs or barriers present along the roadway, which wasn't repaired by the time of the incident.

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"Our girls ask how and why their daddy died, and I'm at a loss for words they can understand because, as an adult, I still can't understand how those responsible for the GPS directions and the bridge could have acted with so little regard for human life," Alicia said in a news release.

The lawsuit also claims multiple private property management companies are responsible for the bridge and the adjoining land.

In the years leading up to Paxson's death, Google Maps had been notified several times by people urging Google to update its route information, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also features email records from a Hickory resident who alerted Google in September 2020 with their "suggest an edit feature" that the service was directing drivers over the collapsed bridge.

"We have the deepest sympathies for the Paxson family," a Google spokesperson said in a statement to USA TODAY. "Our goal is to provide accurate routing information in Maps and we are reviewing this lawsuit.”

Paxson's mother-in-law Linda McPhee Koeing said he was driving home on a "dark and rainy night" in an Oct. 3 Facebook post.

"The bridge had been destroyed … years ago and never repaired," Koeing wrote last year.

Investigating troopers said last year the road where the tragedy occurred is not roadway maintained by the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

"Purportedly, that portion of the roadway collapsed several years ago when a culvert washed away," Swagger wrote. "Previous barricades apparently and reportedly had been vandalized and removed." 

Contributing: Natalie Neysa Alund