The family of a girl crushed by a gate at a Tucson school is filing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – A grieving family has filed a lawsuit against the Flowing Wells Unified School District over the death of their daughter.

Arlette Chavira, 9 years old, was killed when a roller shutter door fell on her Centennial Elementary last November.

The $15 million lawsuit said Arlette’s younger sister, who was 7 at the time, jumped out of the way of the gate.

According to the lawsuit, Centennial’s administrator, 9-year-old Arlette Chavira, and her 7-year-old sister pulled the metal gate and “it rolled past the stop bar, went off its tracks and fell violently” onto Arlette, hitting her in the foot face and head and shattered her skull.”

Images in the lawsuit filed by Arlette Chavira’s parents show the stop bar, a bent metal tab, that failed and caused the metal gate to fall on their daughter.

The claim said Arlette and her younger sister were leaving school and were planning to walk to Flowing Wells Junior High, where their mother worked. They then offered to help the depot manager close the gate, as they had done before.

When the gate fell on Arlette, the lawsuit said the manager “…attempted to pry the gate off Arlette but was unable to do so himself.”

Her mother arrived at the scene and “rode in the ambulance with her dying daughter and was said to be hysterical as paramedics attempted to save Arlette’s life.”

Her father rushed to pick up the 7-year-old sister and then rushed to Banner University Medical Center, but “…didn’t make it to the hospital in time to see Arlette before she died,” less than an hour after he helped had goal.

The claim cites a work order submitted nine days earlier … as evidence that the school knew the gate was a danger and the girls could not be allowed to help close it.

The district said it could not comment at this time.

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