Family of woman killed by falling utility pole to receive $30M settlement

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The family of a South Carolina woman struck in the head and killed by a rotting 70-year-old utility pole will get $30 million through a wrongful death settlement reached Thursday.

Electric company Dominion Energy, which installed a light on the pole, and communications company Comporium, which owned a drooping pole line in downtown Wagener that was no longer in use, both signed off on the agreement, which resolved a wrongful death suit brought by Jeunelle Robinson's family, according to documents filed in Aiken County.

Last August, a truck snagged the line, pulling it like a rubber band until it broke the poles and launched one into the air, striking Robinson, who was grabbing lunch during her break as a social studies teacher at Wagener-Salley High School, authorities said. The truck had a legal height, they said.

Surveillance video from a nearby store shows Robinson, 31, try to dodge something before the pole strikes her, flipping her body around violently. She died a short time later at the hospital.