Horry mom took baby to 3 medical centers for help. Infant died weeks later, suit says
An Horry County mother claims three area medical centers and practitioners dismissed her concerns and her 2-month-old baby’s pain, leading to the child’s death, a lawsuit filed Friday said.
The child, identified in the wrongful death suit as H.G., was born on July 13, 2023, and began showing signs of abdominal pain with diarrhea, a fever and nasal congestion just two months later. The baby suffered from COVID, strep meningitis and seizures before dying on Sept. 30, 2023, the lawsuit says.
If the medical centers hadn’t deviated from procedures and had conducted needed workups, the death could have been avoided, the lawsuit claims.
Messages left with two of the medical groups — Lowcountry Urgent Care and McLeod Health — were not returned by publication.
Grand Strand Health shared a statement with The Sun News saying, “Our hearts go out to this family as they grieve the loss of their child, and we extend our deepest sympathies during this incredibly difficult time. We are reviewing the filing and will respond accordingly.”
H.G. was in pain when she moved, the lawsuit says. She was taken to Lowcountry Urgent Care on Sept. 14 and seen by practitioner Amy Hill, who tested her for COVID and the flu. When the COVID test came back positive, Hill “chose that as the only diagnosis, failing to work-up for any other concerns,” the lawsuit claims.
The mother and child were sent home without instructions to proceed to an emergency department, according to the suit.
The following day, H.G. had not improved and her mother, Shirrina Long, took her to the McLeod-Loris Emergency Room. Long shared that her daughter had been diagnosed with COVID, had cried when picked up for the last two days, would not keep breast milk down and was “inconsolable and fussy,” the lawsuit says.
Physician Assistant Donald Metzger examined H.G., returning a normal respiratory examination but finding a red throat. The child was also found to be tachycardic, the lawsuit says.
Despite the baby’s “history of pain when picked up, inconsolability and ongoing fussiness,” the baby was given a “pain score” of zero, the lawsuit claims.
Metzger ordered a chest X-ray but did not order a lab work-up including a CBC, blood culture or urine culture, according to the suit.
After just over an hour and a half, H.G. was discharged from McLeod-Loris with a diagnosis of COVID “without consideration for any other differential,” the lawsuit says.
Long was told to feed her child one ounce at a time and return to the emergency room if uncontrolled nausea, fever, vomiting or diarrhea presented.
H.G. did not improve once home, and began having “jerking motions,” prompting Long to take her to Grand Strand Medical Center that same night, the lawsuit states. There, blood work was taken and came back showing “multiple abnormalities.”
The child was seen by Dr. Jennifer Olivarez and Dr. Radley Short, who found “abnormal movements on her left side,” but did not perform a complete neurological assessment, according to the lawsuit.
Olivarez and Short gave H.G. a differential diagnosis of seizures, encephalitis, meningitis, dehydration and an electrolyte imbalance.
Despite meningitis being considered, a lumbar puncture was not performed to test for it, the lawsuit claims.
After about three hours, H.G. was admitted to the hospital, but was not given antibiotics or a lumbar puncture, according to the suit. After 11 hours since her “ER presentation” that morning, H.G. was given a lumbar tap which showed she was suffering from bacterial meningitis, the lawsuit says. She was then given antibiotics.
The child was then transferred to a “higher level of care” at MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital. At this point, she was “minimally responsive and in septic shock.”
Despite receiving “appropriate treatment” at MUSC, an MRI taken on Sept. 25 showed the child had “deep brain matter destruction in her higher cortical structures,” the lawsuit says.
She passed away five days after that MRI from stroke and seizures caused by meningitis and septic shock, the lawsuit says.
The suit claims that Lowcountry Urgent Care, McLeod-Loris, GSRMC, Hill, Metzger, Short and Olivarez were negligent and contributed to the wrongful death of H.G.
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
