Name : Parmi

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Feds admit liability for death of Alabama inmate who died

of ulcer
'This man was literally in a ball, moaning and groaning.'
by Tracy Connor / Jun.05.2018 / 1:29 AM ET / Updated 7:31 AM ET
The minute Alabama jail guard Jeremiah Van Horn laid eyes on  inmate Phillip Anderson , he
said he could tell the 49-year-old veteran was grievously ill.

"This man was literally in a ball, moaning and groaning," Van Horn told NBC News this week.
"I was shocked to see him lying there like that."

In the ensuing hours, Van Horn said, he repeatedly tried to get help for Anderson but was
told that medical staff at the Tuscaloosa County Jail believed he was faking.

Van Horn, though, said he had no doubt Anderson's suffering was real.

"He was in excruciating pain," Van Horn said. "I started praying, 'Oh Lord, can you see what's
wrong?'"

At the end of his overnight shift, Van Horn went home. Hours later, everyone agrees,
Anderson collapsed and was taken to the hospital, where doctors rushed him into surgery
and discovered a perforated ulcer. He died on the operating table.

Afterward, Van Horn said, a supervisor had him write out a statement about his contact with
Anderson — then tore it up and had him submit a new one with less detail. An attorney for
the jail told NBC News that he didn't believe that happened.

Anderson's death is now the subject of a lawsuit by his family. And in a surprising move last
week, the federal government — which funds and provides legal coverage to the jail's non-
profit medical provider, Whatley Health Service — admitted liability.
Although the feds denied specific allegations of wrongdoing in the suit, the move means the
only thing they will contest at trial is how much in damages they have to pay, according to a
motion they filed.

I started praying, 'Oh Lord, can you see what's wrong?'

Some defendants — the county, the sheriff and a deputy — were removed from the suit by
the court during pretrial proceedings. But the judge declined to dismiss claims against two
jail officers, Sgt. Kenneth Abrams and Patrick Collard, finding they "had a duty" to get a sick
inmate help, a ruling they plan to appeal.

"If he hadn't been in jail, he would be alive right now," said Anderson's daughter, Erica Fikes,
29. "I don't feel like they even gave him a chance."

The lawsuit is one of many that have been filed across the country accusing
prisons and jails of denying inmates adequate medical care.
"There is a public health crisis in this country of people behind bars not
getting medical, mental health or dental care that they need," said Gabriel
Eber of the ACLU National Prison Project, which is not involved in the
Anderson matter but has gone to court to force improvements at other
lockups.
"It's a crisis that causes [people] to suffer immeasurably and occasionally
even to die as a result."

'I
Can't Breathe': Video Shows Man Begging For Help Before He Died In Jail
The attorney representing Anderson's family, David Schoen, said his death
"was the direct product of a system that treats an African-American citizen of
modest means as something less than human.
"Only now, three years later has the federal government on behalf of the
medical staff admitted their role in causing Mr. Anderson's death," he said.
Anderson, a former Army reservist who had four adult children, was arrested
on Feb. 7, 2015, after police at a roadblock discovered an outstanding
warrant for a contempt of court charge from an old child support case.
According to the suit, Anderson fell ill soon after being booked into the jail,
vomiting after a meal. Unable to keep down food or move his bowels, he was
treated for pain with naproxen — which can cause or worsen ulcers — and
then for constipation.
By Feb. 13, Anderson's condition had gotten much worse, according to
statements from fellow inmates included in the court file.
"This man hollered for three days straight, all night long," one of the
inmates, Gaffery Buggs, told NBC News. "This man was really hurting."
But another inmate, Eric Ligon, said in a statement for Schoen that jail staff
accused Anderson of malingering, yelling at him to get up.
By Feb. 14, Anderson's stomach was badly distended and hard to the touch,
Ligon said. He couldn't get out of bed and groaned all the time.
That was the situation Van Horn said he encountered when he went to cell
block 11 that night for a head count. He said he called his sergeant to say
Anderson needed to go to the infirmary and was told he'd already been
assessed and was being treated.
"I called every 30 minutes until I was told to stop calling," said Van Horn,
who said he left his job for medical reasons and has a pending employment
discrimination lawsuit against the county.
Eventually, he said, a Whatley nurse called for Anderson, who was brought to
her in a wheelchair. The nurse, according to Van Horn, "said she can't send
him out to the hospital because she will get fired."
She gave Anderson an enema and sent him back to the cell. The doctor,
Phillip Bobo, wouldn't be able to see the inmate until Monday, she said. But
by then, it would be too late.
A picture of a young Phillip Anderson.willsfuneralservice.com
The morning of Feb. 15, Anderson's family, alerted to his condition by other
inmates, called the jail to say he needed medical assistance. The two
detention officers, Abrams and Collard, went to check on him and later said
in statements that the sick man took off running toward the bathroom and
fell on his way back to the bunk but was able to jump up without assistance.
Their account was disputed by other inmates who said Anderson was in no
shape to do anything but plead for relief.
"Mr. Anderson kept asking me to help him somehow," inmate Kenneth
Brifford said in a statement for Schoen. "He thought he was going to die."
Barely two hours later, according to the inmates, Anderson passed out while
being helped to the bathroom. They said a nurse summoned to the cell
accused him of faking and had them lay him on the ground in a pool of urine.
Jail staff tried to resuscitate him with a defibrillator before EMS arrived and
took over. He arrived at the hospital three hours after he collapsed,
according to a defense expert's timeline.
A medical expert hired by Schoen concluded that Anderson's death was
preventable and that medical staff "neglected obvious and ominous signs of
his worsening health." The expert, Dr. Homer Venters, said even a layperson
would have recognized that Anderson needed to go to the emergency room
for testing.
Travis Wisdom, who represented the county, the sheriff and the jail
employees, said it's unfair to blame the detention officers for Anderson's
death when the medical workers misdiagnosed him.
"Do we want untrained people overruling professional doctors in our
society?" Wisdom said, adding that Anderson and Collard only had contact
with Anderson on the last day he was alive. "Our records show every time he
requested treatment, he was given treatment.
Do we want untrained people overruling professional doctors in our
society?
"Unless every jail guard happened to be sadistic, what motivation would they
have to deny this man medical attention?" Wisdom added. "It doesn't cost
the jail or the county more money to treat him."
The U.S. Health Services and Resources Administration, which funds the
Whatley clinic, said it could not comment because the lawsuit is ongoing.
Whatley did not return a call for comment, and Dr. Bobo — who used to
treat the judge's family and had also treated Anderson before he was jailed
— also did not respond to a request for comment.