Ohio State will pay $500,000 and provide free undergraduate tuition to a former student who lost a leg after being run over by a university contractor's dump truck in September 2012.

Ohio State will pay $500,000 and provide free undergraduate tuition to a former student who lost a leg after being run over by a university contractor�s dump truck in September 2012.

James Daniel Hughes, a freshman chemical-engineering major from South Point along the Ohio River, was riding his bike to class on Sept. 5, 2012, when he was hit by a dump truck near the entrance to a construction site along Woodruff Avenue.

The then 18-year-old lost his right leg and suffered severe damage to his pelvis and spine. At the time, his attorneys said, he also nearly lost his life because of several serious infections.

Hughes, his parents and three siblings sued Ohio State; the driver of the dump truck, Isaac Hinton, of the East Side, who was 71 at the time; and 10 contractors hired by Ohio State. The lawsuits alleged that OSU and its contractors failed to take the necessary precautions to keep students safe in what they knew was a densely packed area.

The Ohio Court of Claims approved the settlement between Ohio State and Hughes and his family on Dec. 12.

In exchange for the money and tuition, Hughes and his family have agreed to drop all pending claims against Ohio State and not file any future suits involving the accident.

Ohio State does not admit any wrongdoing in the agreement. And no part of the agreement can be used against the university in any other legal proceedings, according to the settlement.

Stephen Crandall, an attorney for Hughes and his family, said he couldn�t comment, because his clients signed a confidentiality clause. Hughes and his parents, James and Kelley, couldn�t be reached for comment.

OSU spokesman Gary Lewis said the agreement is part of a broader resolution that involved several other parties.

�That global resolution is aimed at helping Daniel as he moves forward, and we at the university will continue to support Daniel as he works toward completing his degree here at Ohio State,� Lewis said.

Hinton and the contractors settled their cases with Hughes and his family in September and October, according to Franklin County Common Pleas documents. The details of those settlements were not released.

Hughes was one of three OSU students critically injured in pedestrian and bicycle crashes that semester, which led to a safety campaign by the university and an enforcement crackdown of jaywalkers by Columbus police.

The accident involving Hughes occurred as Gilbane Construction Co. and nine other contractors were working on the $126 million Chemical Biomolecular Engineering and Chemistry building on Woodruff Avenue. Students often had to pass the site to go to class or their dorms.

A gate at the site was left open, and construction vehicles were allowed to go in and out without any security workers or sufficient precautions for students, according to court documents. The crash was foreseeable, the documents say, and Ohio State did nothing to prevent it.

After the accident, OSU police conducted a four-month investigation and released a several-hundred-page report. The report concluded that police shouldn�t seek criminal charges against the truck driver, because Hughes appeared to have been riding his bike on the sidewalk, instead of in the street, and did not see the turning dump truck until it was too late, based on witness statements and other evidence.

Police said they didn�t think Hinton saw Hughes, because he was in the dump-truck driver�s blind spot.

epyle@dispatch.com

@EncarnitaPyle