By Mark Hayward
The New Hampshire Union Leader
MANCHESTER — The Valley Street jail, Manchester police and Elliot Hospital are named in a $25 million lawsuit filed on behalf of Fern Ornelas, a Manchester resident paralyzed last October at some point while he was under the care of one or more of the three organizations.
The lawsuit also names Hillsborough County Corrections Superintendent David Dionne, Police Chief David Mara and other corrections officers, jail nurses, hospital security guards and police officers who came in contact with Ornelas over a two-day period.
The 71-page suit was filed late last week by attorney David P. Angueira of Swartz & Swartz of Boston.
It lays out the altercations and injuries that Ornelas suffered at both the hospital and jail. And it claims his symptoms were ignored by law enforcement, jail officers and medical professionals as he was moved from hospital to police station to jail.
“This is not a convicted criminal with a prior record. This was a good person asking for help and who wound up paralyzed. That’s fundamentally wrong,” said Angueira, who won a record $17.5 million personal injury verdict in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire against Volkswagen in 2001.
On Oct. 16, an Elliot Hospital doctor requested that Ornelas, who had a history of psychiatric problems, be committed to the New Hampshire State Hospital after a minor automobile accident. Ornelas eventually got into a fight with a hospital security guard, was charged with assault, was booked at the police station and then transferred to the jail.
By the next morning, he was returned to the hospital, where a CT scan disclosed a broken neck. At one point in the jail, a delusional Ornelas banged his head against his jail cell. Shortly afterward, corrections officers entered his cell, threw him to the floor and placed him in a restraint chair, where his condition deteriorated.
In April, the New Hampshire Attorney General announced that a months-long investigation found that no crime was committed against Ornelas, and the amount of force used against him at the hospital and jail was justified.
The lawsuit focuses on whether Ornelas received proper care, not whether a crime was committed, and it details what it says happened to Ornelas step by step, emphasizing some facts not mentioned in the Attorney General’s report. They include:
Photos of Ornelas and hospital security guard Lawrence Bolduc, a former New Hampshire State Police trooper, shortly after their fight. Ornelas is on a stretcher, dried blood on his nostrils and a stream from underneath his right eye. Bolduc, who the suit claims was once suspended as a trooper because of steroid abuse, had a small cut to the bridge of his nose and above his left eye.
Discharge instructions prepared by the Elliot Hospital said Ornelas was to be returned if his situation worsened. The booking officer at the police station noted Ornelas complained about head and neck pain, but police did not do anything about his complaint and did not read the discharge instructions.
At jail intake, a nurse filled out paperwork that said Ornelas did not complain of head or neck pain. “Despite Nurse (Flavia) Martin’s reports that Mr. Ornelas was not complaining of neck pain, the guards who were present during the initial medical assessment by Nurse Martin and booking process reported that he was in fact complaining about neck pain as well as acting oddly,” the report reads.
While the Attorney General’s report portrays Ornelas as belligerent by swearing and wetting his cell floor with toilet water, the suit said Ornelas was hallucinating and believed it was raining. “Despite these obvious signs of mental illness, no mental health worker was requested to see or communicate with Mr. Ornelas and instead he was forcibly extricated from his cell,” the suit reads.
The suit said the jail did not provide Ornelas with mental health care, although jail policies say care should be available. And it faults the Elliot for allowing police to arrest and remove Ornelas from the hospital, even though he was under a commitment order to the State Hospital.
The suit does not say when Ornelas’ neck was broken.
“That’s the million dollar question,” Angueira said. “We don’t know that. I don’t know if we’ll ever determine exactly when his neck was broken.”
It will be up to a jury to determine such a fact and to apportion blame among the defendants, Angueira said, although he said “they’d be fools to let me try this case in front of a jury.”
The three main defendants received the case on Thursday or Friday, and they gave little initial response to the Union Leader .
Elliot Hospital said it could not discuss Ornelas’ treatment in detail because of privacy laws.
“As is the case with many allegations made in connection with a lawsuit, Elliot Hospital does not agree with many of the claims as asserted, and intends to vigorously defend the claims against it through the appropriate legal process,” Elliot said in a statement.
The hospital said it remains committed to working with government officials and community partners to care for mentally ill people.
A message left for jail Superintendent David Dionne was not returned, but in the past Dionne has said the jail did everything properly. Manchester police referred a reporter to the city solicitor for comment. A telephone message left at his office was not returned.
Much of the suit concentrates on the jail, which Angueira said has shown a “continuing pattern of misconduct and inattention to medical needs of inmates house at the Hillsborough County Department of Corrections.”
“Such practices constitute an arbitrary use of government power, and evince a total intentional and unreasonable disregard for the constitutional and common law rights of Mr. Ornelas and others like him,” the suit reads.
Superintendent David Dionne is sued individually for providing improper medical care. Eleven corrections officers and four nurses are also named for providing improper care. Three corrections officers are named for using excessive force.