LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. -- A middle Tennessee family is suing a Martin, Tenn., hospital over the death of their daughter.

Video: Family Files Wrongful Death Suit After Daughter Dies

According to her parents and others that knew her, Jodi Woods was a very giving person. After being voted best looking for three straight years at Lawrenceburg High School, she celebrated by changing diapers of wheelchair-bound children. And she decided to commit her life to teaching severely disabled children at age 8, her parents said.

There are shrines to her everywhere she ever worked. There are poems from recovering drug addicts on Myspace.com. There are overweight Lawrence County boys who said they remember the only time a girl ever asked them to dance.

There are teenage mothers in Lawrence County who said they remember it was Woods who helped them make it through an unwanted pregnancy.

“She had seen more than most nurses at the hospital had seen,” said Woods’ mother, Donna Shedd.

Friends said that Woods continued to live like this as a senior at the University of Tennessee at Martin.

It was during this time that she woke up one morning with the worst headache of her life and called her best friend, Jennifer Owen, to take her to the emergency room at Volunteer Hospital. The hospital is located seconds away from the UT-Martin campus.

“She was just like, lying against the wall, she has her sunglasses on covering her eyes saying, ‘My head hurts. My head hurts,’” Owen said.

Owen said she called Woods’ mother and father, who immediately dropped everything and started the drive to Martin.

Shedd is an experienced emergency room nurse. She said when she heard headache, fever, vomiting and eyes sensitive to light that she suspected meningitis. She said when she learned Woods was in the hospital, things would be OK.

But according to Owen, workers at the hospital treated Woods like a drug user.

“I think they labeled us as soon as they walked in the door,” she said.

Owen said she kept calling Shedd and Shedd said she finally got a nurse on the phone.

“The first thing that she asked me was if Jodi was a drama queen. Does she overreact to things? And I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ and she said, ‘We’ve put her in four-point leather restraints,’ which means that they tied her arms and legs down with leather straps. And I said, ‘That’s not Jodi,’” Shedd said.

The Shedds said once they got to the hospital that nothing seemed right.

“When we got over there, they had her pushed back in the back all be herself and nobody around her. No nurses, no nothing. She was just back off in the corner,” said Jerry Shedd.

“Before you even come to the door, you can hear her moaning. You’ve seen these specials where they shoot these animals and they’re dying and they make that horrible, sad sound, that’s what it reminded me of. They didn’t even start any kind of treatment for her sickness until after we got there,” said Donna Shedd.

Woods crashed at 7 p.m. She was airlifted to Jackson Hospital where she died. The Shedds have since filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against Volunteer Hospital.

“The problem we had with the treatment was that they didn’t listen to Jodi Woods. (She) had all of the symptoms of meningitis yet they assume that maybe she wasn’t sick or maybe she was overstating her case or in their words, a drama queen,” the Shedds’ family attorney Mike Sheppard.

Owen has graduated and now works as a police officer. She said she loves her job but that something is still wrong.

“A lot of the time, I just feel a lot of guilt like I could have done something more or had the doctors check her out sooner. It’s just tough to lose somebody that close to you, and I’m not the only one, I know you know that. The bottom line is it just shouldn’t have happened,” Owen said.

The Shedds said words hardly describe it.

They ask how you take such a brilliant star out of the sky and suffer in a now dim world.

“Your heart’s broken. Nothing will ever be the same again. You are so lonely,” said Donna Shedd.

All through the reporting of this story, Channel 4 News has tried to get a response from Volunteer Community Hospital.

The hospital said in a statement that: “The staff at Volunteer Community Hospital would again like to express our deepest sympathy to the Woods family. We continue to keep them in our prayers. Unfortunately, due to federal privacy laws and the pending litigation surrounding this case, we can not comment further."