A family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against National Grid arising out of an August 2011 incident in which a woman was crushed to death by a backhoe that fell off a trailer and landed on the family’s van on an interstate highway in Southborough, Mass. Sharon Wang, her two children, and her mother, were trapped inside their Toyota Sienna minivan when a National Grid supervisor lost control of a company-owned dump truck that was towing the backhoe on a flatbed trailer. The backhoe fell off the trailer and the van traveled down an embankment 20 feet. The backhoe landed on top of the van.

It appears that the National Grid driver was ordered by his superiors to conduct a test drive of the combination of a six-wheeled dump truck and flatbed trailer with the backhoe on it. That will be hard to explain. To conduct a “test drive” on a busy Friday afternoon on one of the most congested roadways in Massachusetts makes little sense. Bradley M. Henry, a lawyer with Meehan, Boyle, Black & Bogdanow, a Boston firm, represents the family in this lawsuit.

Source: Boston.com