10/02/2026
Pass Billy Cray’s law….
A father who spent more than a year searching across South Carolina for specialized residential care for his nonverbal, autistic teenager has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.
An autopsy performed the day after 16-year-old Nicholas Walter Brown’s death, concluded that Nicholas died from “probable hyperthermia due to being restrained in a humane wrap in a hot room.”
A Humane Wrap is a full-body blanket secured with Velcro cinch straps, and was only to be used strictly as a last resort during behavioral episodes.
Nicholas was nonverbal and diagnosed with severe autism, intellectual disabilities, ADHD, OCD, and anxiety.
Standing 6-foot-3 and weighing approximately 250 pounds, he began experiencing intense behavioral outbursts when he entered high school that his family could no longer manage safely at home.
His father Brandon Brown recalled having to call 911 a dozen times over a 12-month period to protect his wife and their younger son, Ethan, now 6, who also has autism.
Nicholas ripped interior doors from their frames and sent his parents to emergency rooms with cuts and bruises. Yet local hospitals routinely administered sedatives and discharged him back home without long-term behavioral solutions.
Private residential providers in South Carolina cited an 18-month waiting list or turned the family away due to the severity of Nicholas’s needs.
In August 2024, after Brandon Brown reached out directly to state disability leadership, Nicholas was admitted to Midlands Center, an intermediate care facility for individuals with intellectual disabilities operated by BHDD.
According to the lawsuit, the facility’s air conditioning system failed on May 25, 2025, leaving the unit excessively hot. Staff attempted to cool the area with fans, open doors, and dimmed lighting.
Security camera footage shows Nicholas pacing between his dorm and the lobby area around 6:00 p.m. in visible agitation, holding an empty plastic water cup. Moments later, he slammed the cup on a counter and began banging his head on a doorframe.
At 6:13 p.m., Nicholas was captured vomiting into a trash can in the lobby.
Court records show staff escorted Nicholas back to his room around 6:18 p.m. and brought two Humane Wraps to the doorway. Despite continued vomiting on the floor, staff placed Nicholas into the wrap at approximately 6:40 p.m.
Ten minutes later, Nicholas became completely unresponsive. He was transported to MUSC Health Columbia Medical Center Northeast, where emergency room doctors pronounced him dead.
An administrative review found that staff failed to initiate CPR within the first four minutes Nicholas was observed to be unconscious.
The review also revealed that Nicholas had been subjected to the Humane Wrap 29 times in a single month during his stay, despite state guidelines designating the tool as a restraint of last resort.
Following Nicholas’s death, BHDD suspended the use of Humane Wraps across its facilities.
My heart hurts for the family. 💔
