A Georgia teenager’s family is suing Grady Health after an ambulance never arrived to take her to the hospital.
Amanda “Mandy” Sylvester was just 15 years old when she died in 2024. Atlanta Black Star obtained the lawsuit that her family filed, which laid out what happened.
The 15-year-old collapsed during volleyball practice at the Tracey Wyatt Recreation Center in College Park on Dec. 5, 2024. Her family said she experienced a medical emergency.
She collapsed at 6 p.m. that evening. The first 911 call came in at 6:09 p.m., the lawsuit said.
“She said something about, she doesn’t have her EpiPen or something,” the first caller told the dispatcher, according to WSB-TV.
College Park Fire Rescue arrived within minutes to help stabilize the teenager while they waited for an ambulance.
After waiting 45 minutes, firefighters used an office chair to wheel the teenager into her mom’s car.
Sylvester’s mother then drove her to the hospital, where she went into cardiac arrest and died. Her official cause of death was listed as “treatable bilateral pulmonary emboli,” blood clots in the lungs that “are readily treatable if treatment is initiated in a timely fashion,” according to the lawsuit.
“Took me 45 minutes to get my child to the hospital; 45 minutes I listened to my baby be in pain and struggle. And then when I got to the hospital, I had to drop her off because I had to go park. I couldn’t stay with my baby,” Barbara Sylvester, her mother, told WXIA. “By the time I got back inside, she was in cardiac arrest. And I never got to talk to her, hold her, have my child again.”
A 911 dispatcher told another caller that no ambulances were available, according to the lawsuit. Grady Health said the call was labeled a “Level 0.”
Grady Health claimed College Park’s Fire Rescue truck was equipped to take Sylvester to the hospital. But the city of College Park said its firefighters aren’t licensed for transport. They are also not licensed paramedics.
Attorney Ben Crump spoke with the family at a news conference on Friday.
“Had they known that Grady did not have any ambulances available, they could have had more precious minutes, at least 25-30 minutes to try to come up with a solution to save this baby’s life,” he told reporters.
Crump said the teenager “never should have died in this manner.”
Grady Health sent the following statement to WXIA regarding the lawsuit:
“We are aware of the lawsuit and intend to respond through the appropriate legal process. Because federal and state privacy laws restrict what we may disclose regarding a patient’s medical care or protected health information, we are limited in our ability to comment on the allegations.”
Sylvester’s father, Anthony, also spoke Friday. He told reporters that his daughter was a volleyball star and a high achiever in school.
“She was everything you could ask for from a daughter,” he told WXIA. “It hurts because, as everyone said, when you call 911, you expect help to show up, you expect them to be there. It’s not a worry that we had, but it’s a worry that we have now. Because we were always told, you call, and they show. We see that it’s not the case; we lived the fact that it’s not the case.”
Atlanta Black Star reached out to Sylvester’s family and Grady Health for more information, but has not heard back.
