Lawsuits scheduled for court

A jury will hear the Reynolds wrongful-death lawsuit against law enforcement officers in October. Meanwhile, the court has scheduled trials in the Reynolds versus health care providers suit, the Bristol Compressors lawsuit and the Miller versus the board of education lawsuit for April 2004.

Senior Resident Judge Michael E. Helms set trial dates for those civil cases and several others during a July 2 administrative session of Alleghany County Civil Superior Court.

Mark Reynolds, Jackie Dean Reynolds' son and administrator of his estate, is suing Alleghany Memorial Hospital, Dr. Thomas Douglas Murray, physician's assistant Donna Reeves, New River Area Programs (a.k.a. New River Behavioral HealthCare), outpatient therapist/social worker Carol Elizabeth Miller Holcomb, Michael Sawyers and D.R. Dickens over his father's death five years ago.

Jackie Reynolds, a 46-year-old Wilkes County resident, was taken to AMH, then to the Alleghany County Jail, following a single-car crash April 19, 1998 near Sparta.

He became unconscious following an altercation with sheriff's department personnel, including Sawyers and Dickens, at the jail. Reynolds was airlifted to N.C. Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem where he remained in a coma and died June 21, 1998. The suit accuses AMH, Murray, Reeves, New River and Holcomb of negligence and Sawyers and Dickens of using excessive force. All have denied those allegations. Last December Helms granted motions to separate the case into two lawsuits, one against the medical personnel, the other against the law enforcement officers.

Reynolds versus Sawyers and Dickens is scheduled to be the fourth jury trial during the next regular session of civil superior court, which is slated to begin Oct. 13. Motions in the case are to be heard Aug. 11, during the next regular session of Alleghany Criminal Superior Court. The case will probably actually be the third jury trial.

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