Days after Hurricane Florence dumped nearly 2 feet of rain along the Carolina border, Horry County Sheriff's deputy Stephen Flood on Sept. 18, 2018, drove a jail van into rising waters as Deputy Joshua Bishop rode in the passenger seat. Nicolette Green and Wendy Newton were locked in the back, though neither was an inmate.
Instead, the women were being transported to mental health facilities. Supervisors later testified at Flood's trial that they told the deputies to avoid the town of Nichols, which was caught in the storm. A national guardsmen who manned a checkpoint said on the stand that he warned Flood about the waters ahead.
The deputy drove on. Flood and Bishop escaped as water poured into the vehicle, but they could not free the women. Rescuers eventually pried the van open with an ax.
It was too late. Green and Newton were dead. Flood was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide.
Charges were dropped against Bishop. South Carolina has long dictated that law enforcement transport mental health patients to facilities across the state, which can take deputies and police officers out of their jurisdiction for hours, require overtime pay and traumatize sick people by shuttling them around in vehicles typically reserved for criminals or people accused of committing crimes. After that fatal day in 2018, conversations about changing the state's patient transportation system earnestly began.
Recently, the S.C. Department of Mental Health completed its statew.
