A 20-year-old in a St. Louis County jail died of surviving leukemia last year after pleading for help by staffers who didn’t show him to a doctor, a federal lawsuit alleges.
The civil rights lawsuit against the province and several prison officials was brought by the Tashonda Troupe, the mother of the late Lamar Catchings.
Lawyers for St. Louis County did not respond to a request for a response on Saturday.
The lawsuit filed in the US District Court’s Eastern District of Missouri alleges that after Catchings was jailed on April 17, 2018, his health deteriorated and he died on February 28, 2019. The filing did not say what Catchings was accused of doing .
An autopsy determined that he died of a form of leukemia with a survival rate of about 90 percent, the lawsuit states.
The filing quotes Yale University oncologist Steven Gore on the mortality of acute promyelocytic leukemia, believed to have killed Catchings, who said death from the disease was “unscrupulous” and “should never happen,” reported the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Catchings’ death came after two other high-profile deaths in 2019 at the Buzz Westfall Justice Center in St. Louis County. There were two more before the year was up, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit alleges that the county’s health care system is in disarray and without proper medical supervision by registered nurses and doctors.
“Defendant St. Louis County was well aware of the serious and obvious shortcomings with regard to its prison policy and training of prison personnel, including policies and training related to the provision of health services and medical care to its inmates,” he said. .
During an August 2019 vigil for those who died in the facility, Troupe said, “They all had treatable illnesses. All they had to do was get medical care they asked for, and they would be with their families today. . “
In February 2019, Catchings was seen by nurses three times for several minutes after asking for help, vomiting and losing his ability to walk, the lawsuit alleges, alleging that two days before his death, a nurse said, “There’s nothing wrong with it. him … He’s one [expletive] faker. “
Another prison staffer is said to have told Catchings when his health deteriorated to “grow up”.
The lawsuit alleges that staffers at the Buzz Westfall Justice Center admitted that he was sick because they gave him Tylenol, brought him food, and carried him or drove him around in a wheelchair.
His body, with the development of rigormortis, was discovered the day after he died, the lawsuit said.
“Mr. Catchings eventually died alone in his cell and from a condition that the St. Louis County Medical Examiner would later report could be fully diagnosed by a routine prison-run blood panel,” he said.
