NEW IBERIA, La. — Update: Attorneys for Nguyet Le, the Texas woman who died in the freezer of the New Iberia Arby's, have provided an update after Wednesday's inspection of the freezer door.
In a post on social media, the Pierce Skrabanek law firm writes: "Not only was the latch broken, but they had a emergency system that would alarm authorities which was disconnected. Outrageously this location never connected the phone line, which could have likely saved Ms Le's life."
Attorneys also provided KATC with the following photos taken from the inspection:
According to Paul Skrabanek, the attorney representing the Le family, the freezer door latch has been replaced and a new one has been installed.
The lawsuit filed by the Pierce Skrabanek law firm that is based in Texas, alleges that the latch was broken for months, with even former employees using boxes of oil and a screwdriver to keep them from being trapped inside.
"The freezer door has been broken for months, they've known about it, workers who have complained and everyone knows it, there were multiple work orders put in." said an anonymous source.
"They replaced the latch. We got the photo of the old latch and we are going to let the experts tell us what's going on with that," said Skrabanek.
Skrabanek and his team came from Texas to inspect the freezer on Wednesday. Nguyet Le's body was discovered by her son, the amount of hours she spent in the freezer is unclear.
"We want to know what went wrong and to get first-hand knowledge and first-hand experience of what that would have been like to go through," Skrabaneak tells KATC. "Cause ultimately at the end of the day, I'm going to have to explain this to a jury at some point and having been in there and having felt it, I can't imagine what hours was in there like I can't imagine."
Attorneys representing the Arby's franchise and the current general manager of the restaurant both declined to comment on the inspection. He says this inspection can be key to finding out what went wrong that tragic day.
"I'm going to take a lot of dispositions and that's going to be at the forefront of each one of the depositions I take from Arby's," he said. "For sure it will be the first question I ask, why did it take from August to someone having to die for you to fix this?"
The children of Nguyet Le have found strength in each other but still need to know more about their mothers' tragic passing.
"They just really wanna know what happened to their mom, they like to know what went wrong with the door so it doesn't happen to someone else," Skrabanek said.
The family did file a wrongful death lawsuit last month in Texas against Arby's and parties affiliated with the franchise owners. KATC checked with the New Iberia clerk's office and found out that only Arby's has been served.
