After police officers in West Columbia, South Carolina, arrested an elderly man suffering from dementia last July, they cuffed him and put him in a police car but failed to secure him with a seat belt, a new lawsuit says.
On the way to jail, another vehicle crashed into the patrol car, causing serious injuries that led to the man’s death a week later.
Eddie Dean Bigham was 76 years old and suffering from dementia “or a similarly limiting condition” when he was arrested by the West Columbia Police Department for an undisclosed misdemeanor on July 11, 2024, according to the wrongful death lawsuit filed on his estate’s behalf by his widow Rhoda Bigham on Feb. 28.
Officer Anita Chestnut was driving the police car to the Lexington County Detention Center and Bigham was sitting unrestrained in the back rear passenger seat when a white Kia Soul driven by Alexander Scott Frye exiting a parking lot pulled out in front of the police car and collided with it, according to the complaint and reporting by WLTX-CBSNews19.
Bigham suffered severe injuries, including disfigurement, disability, extensive pain, and emotional trauma as a result of the collision before he died a week later on July 18, 2024, the lawsuit says.
The family’s traumatic experience was worsened due to the actions of the city immediately after the crash, the complaint says. The family wasn’t notified about the accident or that Bigham had been taken to the hospital for emergency treatment for several hours. Then police kept Bigham in custody during his hospital stay while “limiting and restricting his family’s access to him during his final days.”
According to his obituary, Eddie Bigham grew up in Great Falls, South Carolina, and was married for 55 years to Rhoda Bigham, with whom he had two daughters and four grandchildren. Relatives said he had a “generous spirit” and “a gentle demeanor.”
He worked for 38 years at the state’s Department of Transportation until he retired in 2005.
The lawsuit accuses the city and police department of West Columbia of negligence and gross negligence for its officers driving too fast for the conditions, not braking soon enough, failing to yield, and failing to properly restrain and put a seat belt on Bigham.
Chestnut, who was a school resource officer at the time of the accident, was not found to be at fault for the collision by the South Carolina Highway Patrol, according to WLTX, which reviewed the incident report. She was treated at the hospital for injuries and released the same day.
It is not clear if she remains employed by the West Columbia Police Department, whose spokesperson declined to comment on the case or on personnel matters. Chestnut has a résumé posted online seeking a new job, which lists the last month of her employment at the police department as September 2024. She is not personally named in the lawsuit.
In 2018, Chestnut made headlines for turning her brother into the police after seeing him stealing a TV on a home surveillance video. He was later convicted of burglary and received a life sentence due to his prior felonies.
Frye, who was not hurt in the crash, received a citation for failure to yield the right of way. The lawsuit also accuses him of negligent, careless, and reckless conduct for failing to pay attention, yield, and brake before colliding with the police car.
The lawsuit alleges the city, the police department and Frye are all liable for the wrongful death of Bigham and seeks a jury trial to determine actual, consequential and incidental damages resulting from his death, including for the value of his life, pecuniary losses, severe mental shock and suffering, grief and sorrow, loss of companionship, and loss of consortium, care and comfort.
James Snell, the attorney representing the Bigham estate, declined to comment to Atlanta Black Star, citing the pending litigation.
The city of West Columbia and the police department have not yet responded to the lawsuit. The next action in the case listed on the Court of Common Pleas docket for the Eleventh Circuit of South Carolina in Lexington County is an alternative dispute resolution session scheduled for Sept. 26.
