The parents of Amanda Sylvester are suing Grady Hospital and Grady EMS for failing to provide ambulance transport and emergency medical care to their daughter on Dec. 5, 2024.
Barbara and Anthony Sylvester have assembled a legal team that includes Malone Law, The Moore Law Firm and attorney Ben Crump. The attorneys filed the lawsuit against Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation on June 15 in Fulton County State Court on the Sylvesters’ behalf. The lawsuit is demanding a jury trial.
Fifteen-year-old Amanda died less than three hours after collapsing at the Tracey Wyatt Recreation Complex in College Park. She was in the midst of a warm-up run around the recreation center gym with teammates on her Dream Chasers volleyball team.
An autopsy showed that Amanda died of bilateral pulmonary emboli, which is “treatable if treatment is initiated in a timely fashion,” the lawsuit reads.
“Mandy’s death was completely preventable,” the lawsuit states. “When we call 911 with an emergent need for ambulance transport to a hospital, we have a right to expect an ambulance to be immediately dispatched and a right to rely on that ambulance to arrive.”
Barbara Sylvester drove Amanda to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta—Hughes Spalding, in her own vehicle.
According to the lawsuit, Grady did not have an ambulance available to respond to the 911 call regarding Amanda and did not contact another provider to respond.
More than 20 minutes passed before Grady informed College Park first responders that no ambulance was available, according to the lawsuit.
The decision by College Park not to transport Amanda was a point of public discussion following her death. In late December 2024, then-College Park spokesman Bill Crane told SaportaReport that College Park first responders did not believe Amanda was experiencing a life-threatening medical emergency.
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