SALT LAKE CITY — A former Weber County inmate is the latest to sue over an allegation of inadequate medical care in a Utah jail.
The 65-year-old Ronald Woodward says he was part of a work release program four years ago when he was injured in a car crash on the way to the job. That evening, he requested medical attention but was given only ibuprofen as he vomited from a concussion in his cell, he alleges in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Salt Lake City earlier this month.
Woodward joins several in alleging poor treatment for those in the state’s county jails, including the parents of a handful of Utahns who died in custody as they awaited trial.
“At this point, it really is a battle about, what is the public entitled to see when it comes to a core public function like running jails? Our position is of course they’re a public record.” — Aaron Kinikini, the legal director for the Disability Law Center
He was ordered to spend roughly a month in the jail up for unpaid traffic tickets, a violation of his probation for stealing a tube of denture glue and hiding a small amount of marijuana in his shoe in 2013, court records show.
Woodward was not wearing a seat belt when the sheriff’s deputy driving the transport truck slammed on the brakes in traffic on Nov. 25, 2015. In the sudden stop, Woodward “was thrown out of his seat, somersaulting around and violently hitting his head on the front wall of the inmate seating area,” his lawsuit says.
He shattered his dentures and began bleeding from his ears and nose, his suit says.
He was brought to the job site but couldn’t work. Later, at the jail, he sought medical attention as his pain worsened but was handed ibuprofen. He spent the following day in jail before being released and going to University Hospital in Salt Lake City, where he was diagnosed with a spine fracture and a blood vessel injury.
Woodward alleges the county violated his rights to due process and equal protection, treating him to too harshly. He seeks damages to be determined at trial, plus compensation for attorney fees.
His attorney and a spokesman in the Weber County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
Others have perished during their time in Utah jails in recent years.
In a pending lawsuit in Davis County, Heather Ashton Miller’s family alleges she would still be alive if jail staff there had checked on her in 2017. Miller, 28, fell from a top bunk and ruptured her spleen. She was transported to a hospital about three hours later, where she was pronounced dead. The Utah Attorney General’s Office determined there was no criminal conduct by jail staff in her death.
In eastern Utah, Duchesne County faces separate lawsuits from family members of two women who died in the jail in 2016.
Melany Zoumadakis alleges her daughter, the 25-year-old Tanna Jo Fillmore, took her own life in her Duchesne County Jail cell after employees withheld Fillmore’s anxiety and depression medications for more than a week.
And Jared Jensen says the jail staff ignored his daughter’s urgent need for health care as she withdrew from heroin. Madison Jensen, 21, died in her cell of dehydration after she had been vomiting for four days. A jail nurse faces a misdemeanor charge of negligent homicide in her death.
In a pending case in Davis County, the spate of deaths has prompted civil rights attorneys to sue in an effort make public the standards widely used in Utah jails.
The effort has met with resistance from prosecutors in Davis County, who say the documents are not theirs to give away because they were created and are owned by a private contractor, Gary DeLand.
DeLand, who is Utah’s former head of corrections, did not respond to a request for comment.
“At this point, it really is a battle about, what is the public entitled to see when it comes to a core public function like running jails?” said Aaron Kinikini, the legal director for the Disability Law Center. “Our position is of course they’re a public record.”
Utah lawmakers have also waded into the issue.
Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, has said she is working on a pair of legislative proposals that would standardize the screening process during intake at a jail and potentially use video conferencing to connect inmates to medical workers.
Moss has noted that suicide has been the main cause of death among those in county jails in recent years, according to a report out earlier this year from the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice. The review found more than half of the 71 inmates who died while in custody from 2013 to 2017 claimed their own lives.
Help for those having suicidal thoughts is available from a 24-hour National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or by texting “HOME” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741.