S.C. lawmakers investigating drowning of MH patients

Abstract

A road barricade and an S.C. National Guard truck did not stop two Horry County Sheriff's Department deputies from driving a van into a flood in September, leaving two female mental‐health patients trapped inside to drown, S.C. lawmakers heard on Nov. 7, the Independent Mail reported. But it was not just the two deputies who put Nicolette “Nikki” Green, 43, and Wendy Newton, 45, at death's door, their families said. The state's entire mental‐health system failed the two women, they added. “Two women needlessly lost their lives,” state Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D‐Charleston, said Nov. 7. “We must take these deaths seriously and let that spur us to action for the work that still needs to be done.” Senators called the Nov. 7 hearing after the two women — Green of Myrtle Beach and Newton of Shallotte, North Carolina — drowned Sept. 18 in the back of an Horry County sheriff's van that was submerged in Hurricane Florence‐related flooding near U.S. 76 and Pee Dee Island Road in Marion County. Both women were trapped in the van, described by their families as a “cage,” for more than 24 hours until rescuers safely could remove their bodies. Neither Green nor Weston was restrained or shackled in the van, which had a rear door. But the two deputies did not have a key to that door, said Newton family attorney Tommy Brittain. The deputies were driving the women from the Waccamaw Center for Mental Health and a mental‐health center in Loris to facilities in Darlington and Lancaster. Green's family has called for both ex‐deputies to face criminal charges.