By Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch
OHIO — Inmate 8-27771 apparently had been bleeding into her brain for more than an hour by the time she arrived at Mount Carmel West.
Diana Carles had lain face down on a dorm floor at the Franklin County jail for several minutes on Sept. 11 after a cocaine-induced seizure threw her from an upper bunk.
A jail doctor thought all she needed was a few stitches to close a cut on her head. But paramedics were summoned to the Jackson Pike jail when she became unresponsive.
The next day, as the 48-year-old Carles lay dying with a pink do-not-resuscitate band around her wrist, authorities hurried to court with paperwork.
She was released from probation, and the guard standing watch at her bed was pulled, apparently so the sheriff’s office wouldn’t have to pay her medical bills.
By the time the South Side woman died on Sept. 15 of blunt-force head trauma, Medicaid -- the federal and state health-care program for the poor -- was picking up the tab.
No one at the Franklin County sheriff’s office would answer questions about her death, which her family blames on jail personnel and her medical care.
The sheriff’s office also would not discuss the move to release Carles from custody for a probation violation stemming from a 2005 conviction for receiving stolen property.
The practice of releasing terminally ill or injured prisoners is not unheard of. And it may increase because of sentencing reforms enacted last week in a bid to ease overcrowding and cut costs in the state prison system.
“If a prisoner develops a chronic illness or becomes terminally ill, it is not uncommon” for sheriffs to seek their release as a dollar-and-cents move, said Robert Cornwell, executive director of the Buckeye State Sheriffs’ Association.
Since 2007, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has freed two terminally ill parole-eligible inmates and discharged 10 other inmates who were freed by judges because of serious medical conditions.
“If someone is dying and incapacitated, why would they need to be in prison?” asked Annette Chambers, chief of the prison system’s Bureau of Medical Services.
Allowing inmates who are not considered dangerous to spend their final days free from confinement not only is “humane but, collaterally, it does spare us some expenses,” Chambers said.
It is rare for ill inmates to have private insurance; most go on Medicaid when they are released. Such a move saves the state money, since federal funds cover about two-thirds of Medicaid expenses, she said.
The recent changes in state law allow prison officials to discharge certain low-level offenders if they are in “imminent danger of death” within 12 months or if they suffer from an incapacitating medical condition that makes them no threat.
Carles’ three daughters hold the Franklin County sheriff’s office and jail employees responsible for her death. Carles had told probation officers she did not feel well when she was arrested on Sept. 10, and she called from jail to say she was very ill, said her daughter Laura Carles.
One prisoner said in a statement that Carles lay bleeding for 15 minutes after her fall before being taken to the infirmary.
“It’s our position she never should have been in a common cell on a bunk bed. She should have been in the medical unit or the hospital and she would not have fallen,” said Mark Kitrick, a Columbus lawyer representing the family.
Michael Rourke, another family attorney, said Carles should have been immediately taken to the hospital for diagnostic tests, such as a CAT scan.
Copyright 2009, The Columbus Dispatch