After man's fatal fall from Kilbourn Avenue Bridge, here's what we know so far about bridges in Milwaukee, how they operate

Since a Rhode Island man fell to his death from a downtown Milwaukee bridge as it opened on Aug.15, it remains unclear how the operator, controlling it remotely from another bridge tower, could have missed him in the surveillance video.

Richard Dujardin, a retired reporter from Rhode Island who was on his way to church, was already walking on the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge when the traffic gates lowered and bells began to sound, a witness told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Department of Public Works does not record the live video feed bridge operators watch, according to a open-records employee at the department.

The Journal Sentinel has filed additional requests for records from the city to learn more about what occurred.

Here's what we know — and don't know — about the incident, and how Milwaukee bridges operate.

How did the fall occur?

Richard Dujardin and his wife, Rose-Marie, were in Milwaukee for a conference and were crossing the bridge about noon on Aug. 15, headed to Old St. Mary's Catholic Church.

As out-of-town visitors, the Dujardins didn’t know the bridge under their feet could open, the family said.

Rose-Marie had been doing a fitness routine, walking ahead of her husband and walking back to him, and she made it to the other side in time. But Richard was near the middle of the bridge when it began to open.

It's thought that Richard, who was 77 and used a hearing aid, didn't hear the bridge's warning bells at first, a report from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office said.

When he did realize what was happening, he tried to catch up to his wife, but he couldn't make it to her in time. He grabbed onto the side railing and held on for one to two minutes as the bridge continued to rise, the report said.

He held on as the bridge deck rose to a 90-degree angle but eventually lost his grip and fell 71 feet to the concrete street behind him, the report said.

Richard suffered head trauma and died from his injuries at the scene, the medical examiner said.

How does the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge work?

The Kilbourn Avenue Bridge is a bascule bridge, or drawbridge. It has two halves, called leaves, and splits in the middle.

It is one of 13 bascule bridges in the city. It works like a seesaw. The roadbed swings upward and is balanced by a counterweight.

The upward rotation is facilitated by a gear underneath the bridge called a pinion.

The other seven movable bridges in the city are vertical lift bridges, in which the entire bridge deck rises vertically in one piece.

How does the bridge operator remotely open a bridge?

The operator must check two cameras with live footage of the Kilbourn Avenue bridge before, during and after opening it.

And "while a bridge house is responsible for multiple bridges, only one bridge is to be moving at a time," said Brian DeNeve, spokesperson for the city Department of Public Works.

Multiple operators do not oversee the same bridge. Each remotely operated bridge is assigned to a specific bridge tower.

The operator watches the live feed on video monitors and uses a control panel to open and close the bridge.

After Dujardin's death, Public Works officials have said in statements that remotely operating bridges is "a safe and standard industry practice" and "a practice that has been in effect for decades."

How many bridges are operated remotely?

Milwaukee has second largest number of movable bridges of any city in the country behind only Chicago.

Of the 20 movable bridges in Milwaukee, 10 are operated remotely, according to the Department of Public Works.

A bridge operator oversees the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge from the Water Street Bridge tower.

There, the operator controls four bridges in total: Kilbourn, Water and the north and south Sixth Street bridges over the Menomonee River.

Five movable bridges in Milwaukee are staffed at least 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Four of them are staffed 24/7.

What kind of warning measures are in place before the bridge opens?

According to the Department of Public Works, before each bridge opens, the following sequence is supposed to occur:

• Horns sound for boat traffic.

• Bells sound for traffic and pedestrians on land.

• Lights at the bridge entrance flash

• Gates over the road and sidewalks go down.

• The bridge opens.

What measures have been taken in recent years to change bridge operations?

In recent years, city bridge operators have made a few changes to their protocol to ease traffic backups and reduce noise after riverfront residents complained.

The bells previously rang throughout the entire bridge opening and closing process. Now, they only ring when the traffic gates are lowering. They turn off once the gates are down.

The bells resume when the bridge is flat again and the gates are reopening.

The Department of Public Works also extended by a half-hour the period of time during evening rush hour in which the bridges will not open for anyone except the largest, heaviest boats.

Have bridge openings increased in recent years? Why?

Bridge openings are up compared to previous years.

In 2021, the city recorded more than 27,700 openings at its movable bridges. That's up 19% from 2017, according to Department of Public Works data.

And the Kilbourn Avenue Bridge has seen an 87% rise in openings since 2017. The boost is in part due to a boat line that moved farther up the river last year, according to testimony at a July meeting of the Common Council's Public Works Committee. Five additional bridges now stand between the Milwaukee Boat Line and Lake Michigan, including Kilbourn.

Most of the openings are for recreational boats, a Public Works representative said in the meeting.

Is the surveillance footage that the bridge operator sees recorded?

The live video feed that the bridge operator watches is apparently not recorded.

An open-records employee told the Journal Sentinel that "the Department of Public Works does not maintain any cameras that record video footage within the City."

The grainy footage shown on TV news stations that depicted Dujardin on the bridge was taken from a live feed from a camera mounted to a downtown building and maintained by a website called MKE.com, which hosts two continuous live camera feeds with views of downtown.

Have police charged the bridge operator with a crime?

The bridge operator, who has not been identified publicly, has been interviewed by police but has not been charged with a crime.

The operator remained on paid, administrative leave as of Thursday, Aug. 26, DeNeve said.

Milwaukee police said they are continuing to investigate the incident and have not recommended any charges to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office.

Contact Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or scarson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @SCarson_News.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What we know about Milwaukee bridge operations after Kilbourn death