SAN ANTONIO – The family of a San Antonio woman who died in May after being struck by a fiber optic cable in her own front yard filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Tuesday in state district court.
Glenda Roth, 64, suffered significant head trauma on May 2 after a dumpster truck collided with the hanging wire, causing it to whip across the yard of her North Side home and strike her.
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Roth was rushed to Brooke Army Medical Center, where she underwent emergency surgery and then remained in the intensive care unit for nearly two weeks.
“Walking in and seeing her laying there. She didn’t look like my mom anymore,” Roth’s daughter, Caroline Weeks, told KSAT Investigates. “She was unrecognizable. The damage was so severe.”
Weeks said her family made the heart-wrenching decision to remove Roth from life support after doctors determined Roth’s quality of life would be poor and would have likely remained in a vegetative state.
“Definitely the hardest two weeks of our entire life,” Weeks said. “She made life fun, and she had a way of making ordinary moments and ordinary days special.”
Roth passed away on May 15.
The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed to KSAT that her cause of death was blunt force injuries to the head.
Her husband, Bill Roth, described his late wife as the love of his life.
“She was like that brightest star in the sky,” said Bill Roth, who would have celebrated his 17th wedding anniversary with Glenda later this year. “I prayed for her. I prayed that I would somehow meet her before I died, and sure enough, that’s what happened.”
Wrongful death suit filed against three companies
The suit names AT&T, its subcontractor Quest Utility Construction and dumpster rental company HaulBrooke as defendants and seeks more than $1 million in damages.
AT&T and Quest installed the fiber optic line along Oak Ledge Drive well below the standard height requirements set out by the National Electrical Safety Code, the suit claims.
Bill Roth, who said he was standing approximately 12 feet away from his wife when the cable snapped and whipped across the front yard, told KSAT he had raised concerns to AT&T about the height of the cable before the fatal incident.
HaulBrooke, which was not involved in the installation of the cable, was included in the suit because attorneys for Roth’s family said its driver was operating a dumpster truck in a negligent manner when it collided with the cable.
The fiber optic cable was struck by a dumpster truck on Oak Ledge Drive May 2. (KSAT)
The driver, who is also named in the suit and pictured at the scene of the crash, is accused of failing to keep a proper lookout for the cable, and did not take evasive action to avoid it or apply the brakes of the truck before the collision.
“Each of these companies has a part in either creating or ignoring the dangerous conditions that ultimately resulted in Glenda’s passing,” said Brennen Jenkins, from the Crosley Law Firm.
Jenkins encouraged anyone who sees low-hanging cables in their neighborhoods to reach out to the law firm.
“We want to avoid another tragedy like this from ever happening to another family in our community,” Jenkins said.
KSAT Investigates contacted all three companies named in the suit to request comment.
Officials with Quest Construction and HaulBrooke did not respond to our inquiries.
A spokesperson for AT&T responded that the inquiry was received and that the company would get back to KSAT as soon as possible.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.
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