The lawsuit, filed by Myles Mayfield’s parents, names The Learning Vine, LLC as the defendant in the wrongful death lawsuit.
Myles died in Greenville Memorial Hospital from medical complications associated with E. coli, coroner Sonny Cox said.
The lawsuit alleges that the first case of E. coli illness in the outbreak was a teacher at the daycare facility. It says that after the teacher returned to work at the center, several of the children being cared for showed symptoms of the infection during the week of May 10, including Myles.
The lawsuit says the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control was not notified that a teacher The Learning Vine had been sick with an E. coli infection until May 18. The lawsuit said the daycare did not tell parents about the employee’s infection.
After he had been sick with diarrhea off and on for a couple weeks, Myles parents took him to his doctor on May 26 because his condition was worsening, the lawsuit says. Myles was sent home without treatment, and his parents later took him to the emergency room at Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood.
Myles was admitted to the hospital, and on May 27, he was transferred to Greenville Memorial, where he was put on dialysis and a ventilator and died May 31.
The lawsuit says that DHEC confirmed 14 cases of the infection connected to The Learning Vine. DHEC said that the “staggered onsets of illness indicated person-to-person transmission rather than exposure to a single source, such as food.”