<P> Leonard Coatsworth, a Tacoma News Tribune editor, was the last person to drive on the bridge: </P> <P> Around me I could hear concrete cracking . I started back to the car to get the dog, but was thrown before I could reach it . The car itself began to slide from side to side on the roadway . I decided the bridge was breaking up and my only hope was to get back to shore ." </P> <P> Tubby, Coatsworth's cocker spaniel, was the only fatality of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster; he was lost along with Coatsworth's car . Professor Farquharson and a news photographer attempted to rescue Tubby during a lull, but the dog was too terrified to leave the car and bit one of the rescuers . Tubby died when the bridge fell, and neither his body nor the car was ever recovered . Coatsworth had been driving Tubby back to his daughter, who owned the dog . Coatsworth received US $450.00 (US $7,900 with inflation) for his car and US $364.40 (US $6,400 with inflation) in reimbursement for the contents of his car, including Tubby . </P> <P> Theodore von Kármán, the director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory and a world - renowned aerodynamicist, was a member of the board of inquiry into the collapse . He reported that the State of Washington was unable to collect on one of the insurance policies for the bridge because its insurance agent had fraudulently pocketed the insurance premiums . The agent, Hallett R. French, who represented the Merchant's Fire Assurance Company, was charged and tried for grand larceny for withholding the premiums for $800,000 worth of insurance . The bridge, however, was insured by many other policies that covered 80% of the $5.2 million structure's value . Most of these were collected without incident . </P>

Did anyone die in the tacoma narrows bridge collapse