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Criminal charges have been dropped against a former deputy who was helping to transport two mental health patients who drowned while locked in the back of a van that was driven into floodwaters caused by 2018's Hurricane Florence in South Carolina. The van's driver, former deputy Stephen Flood, was convicted in May of two counts of reckless homicide and is serving nine years in prison. But authorities decided to drop charges against Horry County Deputy Joshua Bishop, who was riding along and didn't realize until it was too late that Flood was risking their lives. The two women had been involuntarily committed for mental health care and were being transferred for treatment outside Horry County.

A deputy in South Carolina whose police van was swept away by floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two women seeking mental health treatment trapped in a cage in the back has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. A Marion County jury found former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless homicide. Forty-five-year-old Wendy Newton and 43-year-old Nicolette Green had been involuntarily committed for mental help, but weren't dangerous. Prosecutors say Flood was reckless by driving the van into floodwaters in September 2018 with the helpless women in the back. The van was pinned against a guardrail where Flood and a second deputy could not get them out.

A prosecutor says a deputy in South Carolina charged in the deaths of two women who drowned in a locked police van in 2018 ignored barricades and drove into rapidly rising flood waters against advice from his supervisors. Former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood is on trial on two counts of involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide for the drownings. He was taking the women to mental health facilities under a court order as rain from Hurricane Florence inundated eastern South Carolina. Flood's lawyer on Monday said his client is a scapegoat for supervisors who wanted him to take the shortest route and officials who let him drive around a barricade.