The family of a 19-year-old student at a Georgia technical college recently reached a $1.4 million settlement from her electrocution in a campus fountain. Adriana Rhine was shocked in September 2012 when she went in the ground-level fountain to retrieve her 3-year-old son's ball. The settlement was reached in a wrongful death lawsuit against the state.
The fountain, at South Georgia Technical College, was found to have 17 issues with wiring for the lighting and motor under the fountain. According to a report from the LA Times, another student had been shocked a month earlier, but the fountain was only cleaned and refilled.
The Times reported that the settlement, reached in November and approved by a probate court this month, awards the family $1 million for Rhine’s death, the maximum damage claim allowed under the state’s tort laws. Her son receives $400,000 for the emotional distress he suffered as a witness to the death, described as "excruciating and horrific." Rhine had screamed for help, but people who tried to rescue her had to pull back after being shocked themselves. All $1.4 million will be held in a bank-managed trust for the son, the family’s attorney, Yehuda Smolar, told The Times