Global Courant 2023-04-27 19:46:11
A woman needed urgent help and hospitalization while in a “medical observation” cell, but pre-trial detention was neglected by guards and staff at a Texas prison, according to a federal lawsuit.
Help came “too late” for Holly Barlow-Austin, who died on June 17, 2019, after spending two months at the Bi-State Justice Center in Texarkana, Texas, the lawsuit said. Prison staff are accused of causing her death.
Barlow-Austin, who entered prison with HIV at age 46, did not get her prescribed medications, rapidly deteriorated and went blind, and begged staff for water while held in “deplorable and inhumane conditions,” says an amended complaint filed in federal court.
Now, Barlow-Austin’s family has been awarded $7 million in a “historic” lawsuit before the case would go to trial, according to an April 27 press release from Seattle-based civil rights law firm Budge & Heipt PLLC. Company attorneys Erik Heipt and Edwin Budge and Texarkana attorney David Carter represented Barlow-Austin’s mother and husband in the case.
The lawyers say this is the largest known death in prison settlement in state history.
The settlement comes more than three years after Barlow-Austin’s severe suffering during her last week in prison, when she was “isolated and alone, in constant pain, crawling blindly around her cell, dehydrated and malnourished, living in filthy and inhumane circumstances,” the release said.
McClatchy News contacted attorneys representing Defendant LaSalle Southwest Corrections, who ran the Bi-State Justice Center during Barlow-Austin’s detention, for comment on April 27 and did not receive an immediate response.
The parties will file legal documents to deny claims against LaSalle, according to the release.
“Holly was a kind, compassionate person with a generous spirit – someone who always wanted to help those in need, even strangers. … What happened to her was unforgivable,” Barlow-Austin’s mother and husband said in a joint statement.
Story continues
“While no amount of money can bring back our beloved Holly, this win will help us close some as we move forward,” they said. “And we hope and pray that it will lead to changes in the way our prisons treat people in custody and that it will save some lives in the future.”
LaSalle Corrections operates 18 correctional facilities in Louisiana, Texas and Georgia. It no longer runs Bi-State Justice Centersaid KTAL News.
Lead attorney Heipt said the law firm hopes the settlement “sends a strong message to every prison and jail in America that this kind of blatant disregard for human life will not be tolerated.”
More about the case
The case stems from the time when Barlow-Austin was jailed following her arrest on charges of violating her probation on April 5, 2019, the indictment said.
During nearly two months in jail, Barlow-Austin complained of symptoms, such as severe headaches, nausea, neck pain and a large knot in her neck, the indictment said.
She also complained of blurred vision, which eventually progressed to total blindness, as well as numbness in her legs before she was unable to walk and was seen crawling into her cell, the complaint said.
“Despite her alarming and progressively worsening symptoms, LaSalle never made sure to get evaluated by a physician,” the indictment said.
Her husband repeatedly tried to plead on her behalf, the complaint says. When he repeatedly expressed concern about his wife’s condition between May 22 and May 28, his concerns were allayed by prison nursing staff, the indictment said.
During her last 48 hours in prison, Barlow-Austin was emaciated, starved, dehydrated and in obvious pain, the indictment says.
Despite this, a nurse checked her vitals only once during this time, on the evening of June 10, when she experienced a heart rate of more than 100 beats per minute, was in a hypertensive emergency, and was “blind, mentally confused, disoriented, shaky, unsteady ” used to be. the complaint said.
She would not be taken to a hospital until 10 hours later, the complaint says. Meanwhile, prison surveillance footage captured her final hours in jail, the release said.
According to the indictment, Barlow-Austin died on June 17 in a hospital of “fungal disease/sepsis due to mold, cryptococcal meningitis, HIV/AIDS and accelerated hypertension”. She was 47.
When LaSalle Corrections ran Bi-State Justice Center, other inmates died of neglect before Barlow-Austin, according to Budge & Heipt.
The outcome of the case should serve as a wake-up call to all private prisons and prison operators – not just in Texas, but everywhere: If you start cutting back and putting profit before people’s lives, there will be a high price to pay ,” Heipt said.
Man ‘eaten alive’ by bed bugs and insects dies in Georgia prison, family lawyer says
Man dies after losing 45 pounds in 20 days in jail, lawsuit says He ‘needed help’
Father-of-2 dies in prison from neglect after wife begs staff to check on him, lawsuit says
