SPARTANBURG -- The estate of a woman who died in the Spartanburg County Detention Center filed on Feb. 17 a notice of intent to sue the sheriff's office in state court, accusing the department of medical malpractice.
Ashley Lee Apple, 30, was booked into the Spartanburg County Detention Center on April 8, 2024, according to the notice filed by her estate's attorney, James B. Moore III of the Evans Moore law firm.
But while there, her condition deteriorated and she wasn't given adequate medical care, the notice says. By the time EMS was called on April 12, she was unresponsive. She was pronounced dead at the hospital that afternoon.
The cause of death: Acute peritonitis, caused by a perforated ulcer.
"Instead of taking her complaints seriously, she got an ibuprofen and died from an illness that in modern medicine people don't die from," Moore said.
The sheriff's office spokesman Lt. Kevin Bobo said the department doesn't comment on litigation.
The legal notice claims that jail staff made several mistakes while Apple was in their care.
First, when she was admitted, her intake form suggested she was at risk for drug or alcohol withdrawal, the court filing says.
While she didn't die of drug or alcohol use, her status still should have resulted in staff separating her and putting her under medical observation, which wasn't done, Moore said.
On April 10, Apple fainted twice, the filing says, and by the morning of April 12, she was experiencing "uncontrolled vomiting and defecation."
Yet EMS wasn't called until later that day when staff found her "unresponsive, with fixed pupils, cold to the touch and displaying cyanosis (bluish discoloration), all signs indicating prolonged oxygen deprivation and impending death," the notice says.
She was declared dead at the hospital that day at 1:58 p.m.
"When you're in a jail and you're 100 percent reliant on medical staff for access to care, it's on them," Moore said. "Had she not been incarcerated, ... she could have picked up the phone and called 911. She would have been treated and she would have lived."
The parties involved in the litigation have 120 days from the notice of intent to meet with a mediator, as required by law in medical malpractice cases. If they can't agree on a settlement, the suit will proceed.
"Instead of access to care," Moore added, "there was a barrier to care and that caused her to suffer terribly and die."
According to a list provided by Spartanburg County Coroner Charles Clevenger, Apple was the only local detention center inmate in Spartanburg to die in county custody last year.