Woman unhappy with care at St. Mary's hospital is arrested for trespassing, dies in jail

STL Today ^ | March 25, 2012 | CHRISTINE BYERS

[Sopater]

RICHMOND HEIGHTS • Anna Brown wasn't leaving the emergency room quietly.

She yelled from a wheelchair at St. Mary's Health Center security personnel and Richmond Heights police officers that her legs hurt so badly she couldn't stand.

She had already been to two other hospitals that week in September, complaining of leg pain after spraining her ankle.

This time, she refused to leave.

A police officer arrested Brown for trespassing. He wheeled her out in handcuffs after a doctor said she was healthy enough to be locked up.

Brown was 29. A mother who had lost custody of two children. Homeless. On Medicaid. And, an autopsy later revealed, dying from blood clots that started in her legs, then lodged in her lungs.

She told officers she couldn't get out of the police car, so they dragged her by her arms into the station. They left her lying on the concrete floor of a jail cell, moaning and struggling to breathe. Just 15 minutes later, a jail worker found her cold to the touch.

Officers suspected Brown was using drugs. Autopsy results showed she had no drugs in her system.

[Sopater]

Yes, thank you.

[Sopater]

...it's obvious that that is probably what you "absolutely LOVE" about the question - that it implies she wasn't as innocent as the article makes her out to be.

didn't mean to be cagey, I was just curious what you thought I loved about the question. It's been my experience that when someone proceeds to tell me that they know what I think and that I'm wrong, they're usually way off base.

Anyway, what I absolutely loved about the question was the fact that everyone seems to be affraid to ask it. In my opinion, it is the responsibility of the individual, their family, and the church, to take care of their own. The church and the family have given that responsibility to the state who has been more than happy to take it.

Dysfunctional or not, families have a responsibility to care for those who cannot care for themselves. Now if a person is perfectly capable of caring for themself, they don't usually wind up homeless, unless it's by choice. Either way, its not MY responsibility to care for them, unless I choose to.

I don't know what this poor woman's issues were that had her living on the street, but her family didn't seem to show up until it was too late.

[goat granny]

blood clots in the legs causes inflammation, swelling and redness....We would get patients with such clots in the hospital. The orders were not to massage the legs and a clot could break loose and travel to parts unknown in the body, heart, lungs brain...Its a serious condition...

[boop]

Thank you. IF, and yes IF the ER doc suspected a DVT, she needed a doppler U/S. I have no idea what the physician saw, but no doctor worth his salt would ever let a suspected DVT leave the ER without some kind of workup. No matter how scuzzy the lady might have been. I hope he got at least a good H&P.

PE is sometimes VERY hard to dx. Not justifying this ER's care, but PE can be very deceptive in presentation.

[Mears]

“. I’ve had at least two where they died in the hospital from clots - all of them as a consequence of some lower extremity injury.”

—

I’ve always been fairly casual about lower extremity injuries. No more.

I’ve been aware of DVT on long flights for years,but a sprained,or even broken, ankle would not have concerned me at all. RICE treatment,cast etc. and that would be it.

Thanks for the info.

[Brass Lamp]

And this, dear readers, is a prime example of the competency of our government's ‘professional’ intervention. Please remember this every time an advocate of government intervention suggests that we “leave it to the professionals”.

[vetvetdoug]

The woman's symptoms are consistent with TME that I see in felines. The branching of the iliac arteries is right after the descending aorta and a TME cuts off circulation to the rear legs. The signs are pain, thready or lack of femoral pulses, cold extremities, disuse of the limbs, neurological deficits, and symptoms associated with extreme pain (nausea). This woman had all of these symptoms. This would explain the profound coldness of the legs soon after death as circulation had been impaired.

[jocon307]

“Why, with such a large family, was she homeless?”

I read this story on MSN earlier today, I don’t know if it’s the same article linked here.

This woman seems to have had some serious mental problems, possibly exacerbated by drug abuse, but that part wasn’t clear. She also had had some real hard times that weren’t her fault at all, her home was destroyed in a tornado last year.

Her children were placed with her mother, but the court ordered she could not stay there too. Now I really wouldn’t put up with any court telling me my own child couldn’t live with me, but maybe she was a danger to them, obviously that’s not hashed out in the article.

I didn’t realize she had a lot of siblings, either.

I think this woman had mental illness and I’ll tell you that is the worst thing that can happen to a person and their family in this country.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to get any real help. You are on your own when dealing with an insane family member and good luck to you.

I’ve seen this twice, both my friend and my family member ended up dead by their own hands. Both times their families tried to help them. To no avail. And this was in the NYC metro area, the finest of everything, 24-seven, but no help that was really help.

Oh, they’ll lock you up for a while, but that’s about it.

My b-i-l also had one of these clot things. He was in the hospital for weeks. I myself heard the doctor say to him “you could have died at any time”.

I don’t know if the hospital just made a very bad mistake, or if they were negligent. I just feel like this woman didn’t have much of a chance and that is a shame.

[SaraJohnson]

Blood clots in the legs are apparently hugely painful. Women who are using birth control are exposed to blood clots in the legs. Given the victim was 29, the doctor should have put two and two together.

People have terrible personalities and social skills these days and that includes professionals who fancy themselves superior to the riff raff. Western ethics go with western medicine. No Western ethics = no Western medicine. We have been culturally cleansed by Humanists into a third world cesspool.