Dead Tennessee Teen Receives Repair Bill for Damaged Guardrail

The Tennessee Department of Transportation sent a guardrail repair bill to a teen who was killed in a car accident.

As bizarre as it would might sound, recently, the Tennessee Department of Transportation sent a $3,000 repair bill to a 17-year-old who was killed last year in a tragic car accident. But that’s not the end of the story. According to Stephen Eimers, the girl’s father, the Tennessee Department of Transportation demands reparations for the same guardrail which impaled Hannah Eimers, his daughter, last year.

Stephen Eimers, the father of the 17-year-old teen who was killed last year in a terrible car accident near the town of Niota, recalls how shocked he was when he checked his mailbox four months after her child perished.

Eimers recalls finding an envelope which contained a letter from the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Upon opening the official letter, his jaw dropped. Through this letter, Hannah Eimers was informed that the owed the state of Tennessee approximately $3,000 for the repair job performed on the guardrail that killed her.

With tears in his eyes, Stephen Eimers recalls the day he found out about what happened to her daughter. Hannah was driving her father’s car, a Volvo, on the I-75 highway. According to the authorities, just before arriving at Niota, the Tennessee teen lost control of the steering wheel. The car went into the median section and crashed into one of the guardrails.

Instead of absorbing the impact of the crash, the defective and poorly designed guardrail went straight through the driver’s door and impaled Hannah in the chest and head. Authorities declared that the teenager died on the spot.

Surprisingly enough, shortly after the teen’s death, the Tennessee Department of Transportation admitted that the guardrail which killed the teen (a Lindsay X-LITE model) is indeed flawed, as it cannot absorb the impact of vehicles traveling at speeds greater than 65 mph.

As a result, beginning on the 25^th of October 2016, TDOT started to replace the X-LITE model. However, this didn’t stop the state agency from sending the repair bill to the deceased Tennessee teen.

After the father had said that he refuses to pay the bill, he contacted the state agency and told them about the deed. Mark Nagi, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Transportation declared that it was a mix-up and apologized on behalf of the company.

Obviously, the spokesperson also stated the Stephen Eimers and his family doesn’t owe the state a dime for the defective guardrail that claimed the life of his daughter.

Image source: Vimeo

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Ryan Harris

Ryan has started his career as a web developer and designer before joining us. He enjoys the creativity work and loves experimenting with various techniques in both print and web. He covers the social media, technology and gadgets updates.