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

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

2024-08-16 04:26 Last Updated At：04:31

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.

“We appreciate the leadership of Dominion and Comporium for working with us to ensure Jeunelle’s family would not have to relive this tragedy in court unnecessarily,” the family's lawyer, Justin Bamberg, said in a statement.

The settlement agreement does not detail how much each company will have to pay of the $30 million settlement, and Bamberg's law office said that would not be released.

The exact age of the poles isn't known because records are no longer available. Markings on them haven't been made in over 60 years. However, the 69-year-old mayor of Wagener said shortly after Robinson's death that he recognized a bottlecap he had nailed to one of the poles when he was a boy.

A little more than a month before Robinson's death, Dominion announced a plan to begin replacing equipment that was more than 60 years old in Wagener, a town of 600 people about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southwest of Columbia.

Bamberg said he hopes Dominion and Comporium will use the tragedy to pay attention to inspecting and replacing aging utility poles and other infrastructure that are potentially dangerous, especially in small towns.

Dominion spokeswoman Rhonda Maree O’Banion said in a statement that the company was pleased to resolve the case and extended its deepest sympathies to Robinson's family.

Comporium is glad to have resolved the lawsuit, and “our prayers have been with the family of Ms. Robinson and the many lives she touched since this accident occurred,” Chief Operating Officer Matthew Dosch said in a statement.

The family plans to use some of the settlement to create the “Jeunelle Robinson Teacher’s Hope Fund” to provide school supplies and other items to teachers around the country.

They remembered how Robinson worked her way up from a substitute to her job teaching at the high school and how she often spent her own money and time for her students.

“She loved her class. She loved her students,” Robinson's father, Donovan Julian, said in March when the lawsuit was filed. “She was a light taken too soon. She was a joy.”

This story has been updated to correct the name of the town. It is Wagener, not Wagner.

Blinken and Lammy arrive in Kyiv as Ukraine pushes for long-range strikes against Russia

2024-09-11 19:39 Last Updated At：19:41

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy arrived in Kyiv on a joint visit Wednesday, as Ukraine presses the West to allow it to use long-range missiles against Russia.

The top diplomats reached the Ukrainian capital by train from Poland hours after the U.S. presidential debate during which Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump sparred over the 2 1/2-year war in Ukraine.

Blinken traveled from London, where he accused Iran of providing Russia with Fath-360 short-range ballistic missiles, calling the move a “dramatic escalation” of the war.

For months, Ukraine has been requesting approval to use long-range weapons from the United States and Western allies to strike targets in Russia, and is expected to press harder given Russia’s latest reported weapons acquisition.

“We hope that long-range equipment for strikes on the territory of our enemy will be reached and we will have it," Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told Lammy. "We hope for your help and support in this issue.”

Shmyhal described the meeting with Lammy in Kyiv as “intense” but gave no other details in the post on his Telegram channel.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Shmyhal said that “if we are allowed to destroy military targets or weapons prepared by the enemy for attacks on Ukraine, it would certainly bring more safety for our civilians, our people, and our children.

“We are working towards this and will continue to push for it every day.”

Referring to the missiles from Iran, he added: “Russia’s use of weapons from its terrorist allies to strike at Ukraine continues their genocidal war and terrorism on our territory. We must be able to respond to such terrorism in kind by destroying military targets on their territory to ensure greater safety for our citizens.”

Wednesday’s visit comes ahead of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s upcoming trip to Washington, where he will meet President Joe Biden at the White House on Friday. Ukraine's request for permission to strike Russian targets is due to feature in the discussion.

Biden has allowed Ukraine to fire U.S.-provided missiles across the border into Russia in self-defense but largely limited the distance over concerns about further escalating the conflict.

The rare joint visit by the British and American top diplomats was, unusually, announced in advance — a public signal of U.S-.U.K. support for Ukraine ahead of what’s likely to be a brutal winter of Russian attacks.

Russian airstrikes, mostly aimed at crippling Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, have intensified in recent weeks with nightly missile and drone attacks.

As Blinken and Lammy arrived in Kyiv, the U.K. announced it was banning 10 commercial ships it accuses of illicitly transporting Russian oil in violation of international sanctions. The U.K. government said the vessels would be barred from British ports and could be detained if they enter.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine