Texas woman died after being denied treatment in Mineral County jail - Sensationalist Headlines

https://eu.rgj.com/story/news/2018/08/31/kelly-coltrain-death-nevada-mineral-county-jail-denied-treatment/1145643002/ Locked away in the Mineral County Jail for failing to take care of her traffic tickets, 27-year-old Kelly Coltrain asked to go to the hospital. Instead, as her condition worsened, she was handed a mop and told to clean up her own vomit. She died in her jail cell less than an hour later. Despite being in a video-monitored cell, Mineral County Sheriff's deputies did not recognize that Coltrain had suffered an apparent seizure and had not moved for more than six hours. Details of Coltrain's death 13 months ago came to light this week with the release of a 300-page report compiled by state investigators. The investigation found that Coltrain's jailers violated multiple policies when they denied her medical care after she informed them she was dependent on drugs and suffered seizures when she went through withdrawals.

Seems par for the course for human rights in the US.

Withdrawing from benzodiazepines and alcohol is known to sometimes cause seizures, sometimes to a lethal extent. It was extremely irresponsible to deny her medical care.

This seems like a sad concoction of police men with inadequate training, and a tendency to look at drug users as less human, and a person who was just really unlucky in life. Any drug user should be monitored for withdrawal symptoms by someone qualified, there's really no excuse not to.

Unfortunately it is anymore, and a month form now this will be a non-case about a non-person.

Holland then brought her a new set of jail clothing to replace her soiled uniform and a mop, asking her to clean the vomit from her floor, according to the investigative report. Coltrain sat still for a few minutes until Holland returned and asked her again to mop. According to video reviewed by the Reno Gazette Journal, Coltrain then began mopping her floor while still sitting on her bed. She was trembling during the process and stopped often to rest. A few minutes later, Holland returns to point out the spots she had missed. Coltrain wipes up the spots and Holland leaves with the mop. Holland later told an investigator that he thought it was odd Coltrain didn't get out of bed to mop the floor. "Sgt. Holland advised he thought Coltrain was just 'lazy' and that she just didn't want to stand up to clean the floor," the report said. "Sgt. Holland advised he just wanted the floor to be cleaned and he didn't care how it got done, just that it got cleaned up." Ryman, Mineral County's lawyer, said he couldn't comment on the specifics of the investigation, including why no one called for emergency medical help when Coltrain was discovered unresponsive. He also wouldn't comment on whether any disciplinary action was taken against either Gulcynski or Holland. The lawsuit, however, said both men were disciplined but that Holland opted to retire early. In June, the Mineral County Commission voted unanimously to buy Holland an additional year toward his service for a cost of $17,853. The buy-out allowed Holland to retire with a higher annual pension and health care benefits than if it had been denied.

Jailers are not trained in the medical filed. Usually jails have medical staff, but it is usually through a contract to keep costs down. It is pretty common that during intake medical staff screen the inmate for any medical conditions. Obviously there is some serious negligence. County jails don't get the proper funding and usually lack proper staffing. It leads to situations like this. This is what happens when you have the perfect storm of improper training, shitty medical team, and lack of overall funding because people don't want to pay taxes for public safety. Texas Rangers will investigate the death of an inmate in a Texas jail, which isn't a good thing. You don't want the Texas Rangers around investigating you.

I suppose that's true, but I always assumed it was common knowledge that alcohol detox can be very dangerous, especially in people who are susceptible to seizures for other reasons. I mean, I'd just expect jailers to understand this due to frequent exposure to drug addicts being a reality of the job, meaning one would assume they'd been trained in potential dangers.

I can say for a fact what type of training jailers get because I have a licenses in the state of Texas. You learn very, very, very basic medical knowledge. Any knowledge you get it is going to be from your own independent research. I was fortunate enough to work with another officer who was going to school for nursing. So she thought me some things to watch out for. Most of the time jailers are not even allowed to deal with medical issues other then first aid because of the liability. If you suspect something you call medical down to do an eval. Inmates try to pull fast ones on you all the time in order to score shit from medical so you have to actually have some common sense about it. If I would have saw Kelly Coltrain puking in a iso-cell and shivering I would have had medical check on her. Worse part is she was under cameras view, so they could have easily seen if it she faking illness or being for real. Realistically Kelly Coltrain should have had this caught during her medical questionnaire during intake. I don't know what was told to the medical team on intake, but if they knew she was on these drugs I would have put her in a medical iso-cell (means you get checked on within 10-15 minute intervals). Once she started showing symptoms medical should have been called immediately, reassess the situation, if they cannot treat it at the jail, she should have been transported. But again that comes back to money sadly because the county has to pay the hospital, the county has to pay a deputy to do prisoner transport and stay with the inmate during the entire hospital visit. If she is admitted and has to say for a extended period of time then a deputy has to be stationed at her hospital room 24/7. It is a very sad, depressing, reality.

This was opiate withdrawal. I wish people would read the damn article before posting. The Washoe County Medical Examiner labeled Coltrain's death accidental, caused by "complications of drug use." The toxicology results showed she had heroin in her system. The investigation found that Coltrain's jailers violated multiple policies when they denied her medical care after she informed them she was dependent on drugs and suffered seizures when she went through withdrawals. Uncommon for opiate withdrawal, but not totally unheard of.

It mentioned multiple drugs though, and you have to realise that benzodiazepines are not detectable in blood 3-5 days after ingestion, as they're metabolised quickly, so it's entirely possible she was already withdrawing from those at the point she was in jail, with it just getting worse. She must have been on an extremely high dose of heroin to die from seizures in w/ds. I've withdrawn from oxycodone before, an extremely strong opioid, but I just found the experience nauseating, with it making me very irritable and unable to sleep, as well as feverish.

When I quit doing heroin years and years ago, the worst part was the pain in my bones. It felt like they were on fire, wriggling and covered in bugs under my flesh. If she was withdrawing from heroin, that could easily cause every element of her suffering on display here, sadly.

That's crazy! Oxycodone withdrawal wasn't anywhere near as bad as I expected. I was on the max dose (200mg per day) for about 5 years, and quitting sucked mainly because I couldn't sleep at all. I felt exhausted mentally but couldn't get a break. I then decided to just get massively drunk to sleep, but that made me throw up. God, I hated it. Glad you got off the drugs, mate. <3 I'm of the opinion that drugs like weed and LSD should be legalised and decriminalised respectively, but heroin is fucked up and is too addictive to not be combated, IMO.

Why would someone go for prison for unpaid parking tickets? That seems counter-productive if you want them to pay up eventually. Isn't it even a civil matter and not a criminal one?

You go to jail, not prison for unpaid parking tickets. If you don't pay your tickets you get a warrant. When you get arrested, you go to jail, and you sit out your ticket. So if you have a few hundred dollars you get credit for being booked in, and then you get credit per day you are in jail. For example, the judge decides ultimately how much you owe and how many more fines you occur for non-payment. The jail sets up how much money you are credited per day. It isn't uncommon to sit in a jail for a week for over a grand in fines.

Yes, like shit credit? Why not just treat it like an unpaid loan. Just because you owe the government money instead of a bank doesn't mean it should be treated it differently. After all it's not like avoiding taxes, it's just money you owe to someone similar to bank fees. It's completely absurd. It's like

I'm not agreeing that it is a good thing to do to people. It really traps people into a cycle of poverty. I was just explaining how it currently works. The thing is owing money because of a violation or fine is different then getting a loan or service fee at a bank. You have to utilize the court system to work stuff out, but you are at the mercy of a judge. Some judges drop fines based on circumstances, others do not. It just depends on what type of judge you have and your violation.