CLEVELAND (AP) — The state has agreed to pay $350,000 to the estate of a woman pulled over for suspected drunken driving then killed along the Ohio Turnpike after she escaped from a trooper's vehicle.

State Highway Patrol Trooper Jason L. Turner loosened the handcuffs on Francina Pugh, 53, of Cleveland, and forgot to engage the safety lock on his patrol car door the night of March 30, 2006.

Turner lost sight of Pugh for up to 10 minutes while he searched her car and talked with a tow truck operator. She escaped and was hit by several cars not far from where she was stopped for erratic driving. Her body was severed and her skull crushed.

By the time he realized his prisoner was gone, Turner was at his patrol post in Hiram. He drove right by her walking along the turnpike but believed she was secured in the back.

Pugh's family sued and the case had been set for trial Tuesday in the Ohio Court of Claims when the state settled and acknowledged that the trooper violated several policies, said the family's attorney, Thomas Robenalt.

Pugh, a bus driver who earned less than $10,000 a year, was not married and had one adult adopted child. How to compensate her family given her expected income had become a sticking point in negotiations until Monday.

“Obviously this is an unfortunate and tragic incident and our best counsel to the patrol was to settle the case,” said Leo Jennings of the Ohio attorney general's office, which represented the patrol.

The state argued in court papers that while Turner made mistakes, he did not intentionally seek to harm Pugh, who had a blood-alcohol level of 0.23 percent, nearly three times the state limit.

While the patrol rejects being responsible for Pugh's death, the agency has revamped its training procedures. Troopers now are trained first in the academy, not in the field, on how to handle prisoners in custody. They have to retrain every three years.

Also, the safety lock is set on all patrol cars and no longer can be disengaged, said patrol spokesman Lt. Shawn Davis.

Turner, 31, received a one-day suspension and remains employed at the Hiram post.