Even to an untrained eye, it should have been plainly evident a 30-year-old Summit County jail inmate was in need of urgent medical care in the hours before his life began slipping away on a jail cot.
But emergency help never came, and James R. Watts III died in mid-afternoon from a ruptured stomach ulcer, bleeding in the lining of the abdomen and shock.
When another inmate found Watts unresponsive — at 4:19 p.m., Oct. 12, 2011, according to court records — five hours had passed since he last received any medical attention by jail staff.
His mother, Donna Watts, made those claims in a wrongful death suit filed in federal court last month. She is charging “deliberate indifference and negligence.”
A key component of the complaint: the full autopsy report.
Those findings, detailed by Dr. Lisa J. Kohler, Summit County’s chief medical examiner, say Watts’ condition in the hours before his death required “urgent medical intervention which would have been readily evident to even a non-medically trained individual.”
Based on available jail records from the three days Watts spent in jail, Kohler came to the conclusion that if timely emergency help had been provided, “a fatal outcome may have been averted.”
Named in the suit, still in its early stages in U.S. District Court in Youngstown, are Summit County; former Sheriff Drew Alexander; current Sheriff Steve Barry; Dr. Michael Saddleton, the medical director and chief jail physician; various jail supervisors; and the nurses who attended to Watts.
The suit asks for compensatory and punitive damages to be determined in a jury trial.
Summit County Law Director Deborah Matz declined to comment on the suit, saying it would be inappropriate to do so on pending litigation.
Sheriff’s Inspector Bill Holland, the agency’s chief spokesman, also declined to comment.
David Malik, the lead attorney in bringing the suit, took the same position.
“The suit speaks for itself,” he said.
Kohler’s findings as the county’s chief pathologist apparently will be the foundation of the case. Her ruling on the cause of death was documented in two full pages of commentary.
She ruled Watts died from serious complications and shock brought on by a bleeding ulcer, and said that jail officials knew about this condition when they documented a “history of heroin use” in his Oct. 10, 2011 jail intake records.
In fact, Watts was arrested by Akron police earlier that same day, when he was riding in an SUV at East Market and Adams Streets with a syringe in his lap.
He admitted to using it, his arrest records showed, to “shoot up.”
Watts was described as “calm” and cooperative at intake.
His condition quickly worsened the next day, however, when jail staff reported he was “screaming” and “yelling” while grabbing his stomach and complaining of pain.
Watts also told jail staff he was vomiting blood. Staff then instructed him, the autopsy stated, to drink fluids and attempt to eat.
Because the jail was overcrowded, Watts was not confined to a cell. He was assigned at intake to a cot on the floor of the jail’s open, general prisoner area, where other inmates easily could interact with him.
On Oct. 12, by 10:30 a.m., Watts’ condition had become so severe, another inmate who was a friend from previous lockups informed the staff Watts was not physically able to feed himself.
The inmate’s concern prompted a medical assessment, which later found that Watts had been sweating profusely and had a rapid heartbeat and dangerously low blood pressure.
Jail staff called the chief physician, Seddleton, who ordered an injection of a light sedative used to help control nausea and vomiting. It was the same drug ordered for Watts the previous day.
The physician never saw Watts at the jail, according to the lawsuit, and no emergency procedures were performed until it was too late.
At 4:19 p.m., after a deputy roused the prisoners for dinner, one inmate approached Watts on his cot and yelled, “He’s not getting up!”
When a deputy touched Watts’ arm and found him to be cold, already in rigor mortis, he called the control room for emergency aid.
A fire department squad arrived and took Watts to Akron General Medical Center, where he was in “full cardiorespiratory arrest.”
At 5:04 p.m., Watts was pronounced dead.
Kohler’s autopsy report listed his manner of death as “undetermined” with the pathological notation of “failure to provide urgent medical attention during incarceration.”
Under such circumstances, Kohler wrote in the opinion section of her report, “the issue of neglect” must be given “appropriate and adequate consideration” in explaining how Watts died.
Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or at emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.