COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A group of South Carolina senators reviewing state laws on handling patients who doctors or judges decide need immediate mental health treatment wants to have proposed changes to the laws ready when the Legislature returns next month.

Among the changes being considered after two mental patients drowned while locked in the back of a Horry County sheriff’s van during Hurricane Florence are requiring doctors and others to tell friends and family members they can take the patients to treatment themselves if they accept responsibility.

Family members of Wendy Newton and Nicolette Green said they weren’t given that option. The two women drowned after the van they were in flipped on its side in rising flood waters, blocking the only door two deputies had a key to unlock.

Emergency crews could not get equipment to cut through the metal before the waters slowly engulfed the van.

The van drove around barricades blocking highways in danger of being undermined or flooding, authorities said. The two deputies were fired and a criminal investigation continues.

The subcommittee is also considering additional training and a requirement to create special teams like Charleston County’s Therapeutic Transportation Unit, which evaluates patients with doctors and does not transport them in obvious police vehicles, said Sen. Marlon Kimpson, the Charleston Democrat leading the panel.

Monday’s hearing included testimony on the lack of available space to treat mental health patients who need 24-hour care, especially in rural areas and concerns that a dwindling number of psychiatrists in South Carolina means inadequate treatment even for the patients who are admitted.

Senators also heard from Linda Green, the mother of Nicolette Green. She asked if they could require including a health provider - nurse, doctor or trained emergency medical technician - along with officers when they transport mental patients.

She also said - if they did anything - they should ban the use of police vans with all metal cages inside to transport nonviolent mental patients who have not been charged with any crimes.

That kind of transportation leaves patients feeling like they are criminals and making the mental problems they are already dealing with worse, Linda Green said.

“There has to be something more available to transport nonviolent mentally ill patients than a dog cage,” she said.

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