Response filed to Reynolds lawsuit

One set of defendants last week filed its response in the Jackie Dean Reynolds wrongful-death lawsuit.

Attorneys for New River Area Programs (a.k.a. New River Behavioral HealthCare) and Carol Elizabeth Miller Holcomb filed their answer to the suit Aug. 29, denying charges of negligence, and of their actions and omissions causing Reynolds' death.

Reynolds, a 46-year-old Wilkes County resident, died June 21, 1998 at N.C. Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem after being in a coma for two months. He had been taken to Alleghany Memorial Hospital, then to the Alleghany County Jail, following a single-vehicle crash April 19, 1998 on U.S. 221 near Sparta.

Mark Reynolds, Jackie Reynolds' son and the administrator of his estate, is suing Alleghany Memorial Hospital, Dr. Thomas Douglas Murray, physician's assistant Donna Reeves, New River Area Programs, Holcomb and then-Alleghany County Sheriff's Department officers Michael Sawyers and D.R. Dickens for wrongful and unlawful death. The suit seeks damages in excess of $10,000, in addition to punitive damages, and asks for a jury trial.

The suit, filed June 26, is a re-filing of two previously filed complaints in the case, filed in April 1999 and October 2000 respectively. Mark Reynolds voluntarily dismissed both those lawsuits in June 2001.

Defendants have 30 days to officially respond to such a lawsuit, with an additional 30 days typically granted upon request. Between July 22 and Aug. 14, Clerk of Superior Court Susie Gambill issued orders granting extensions for the respective defendants. AMH now has through Sept. 6 to file its answer; the deadline for Dickens and Sawyers is Sept. 10; Murray, Sept. 13; and Reeves, Oct. 9.

Holcomb and New River have until Sept. 10.

The suit alleges that Holcomb, then an outpatient therapist and social worker with New River Area Programs, acted negligently, failing to use proper judgment by releasing Jackie Reynolds to jail rather than seeking hospitalization for him. The suit also asserts that New River Area Programs was negligent in entrusting Reynolds' care to an unlicensed, uncertified social worker who lacked sufficient training and/or skills to properly evaluate Reynolds' deteriorating mental condition.

Reynolds was taken by helicopter to Baptist Hospital after becoming unconscious following an altercation with sheriff's department personnel.

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