OC agrees to pay $750,000 to family of jail inmate who died from alleged poor medical care

The family of an Orange County jail inmate who died in 2020 after contracting a lung infection will receive $750,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging county health workers failed to properly care for him.

Guillermo Lopez, 43, who had diabetes and drank up to 14 beers a day, was in jail serving a six-month sentence for driving under the influence and having a suspended license.

Lopez died of pneumonia on March 23, 2020, at Anaheim Global Medical Center. The family’s lawsuit alleges county health workers ignored several red flags that he was in poor health and should have taken him to the hospital sooner.

County Supervisor Don Wagner was the lone dissenter in the 4-1 vote Tuesday, July 25, by the Board of Supervisors to accept the settlement.

“I question whether there was liability,” Wagner said. “The man was suffering from the effects of the things he had done to himself.”

When Lopez entered the county’s jail system on March 13, 2020, he told jail nurses that he had diabetes, was an alcoholic and had recently suffered a seizure, according to a report done by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

During several medical checks in the following days, Lopez was found to have an elevated heart rate and a high fever. He was diagnosed with flu-like symptoms, records say. Lopez was given Tylenol, Motrin and Gatorade. He also was on a protocol for alcohol withdrawal.

Lopez eventually complained that he felt dizzy and was seeing spots. He appeared unsteady on his feet in the shower.

At one point, paramedics were called, but they refused to take Lopez to the hospital because they deemed he was not in critical condition, according to the lawsuit.

But within hours, he was transported to Anaheim Global Medical Center, where he suffered hallucinations and appeared to be trying to talk with his mother, the lawsuit alleged. He died later that day, despite efforts to resuscitate him.

The Orange County jail system, operated by the Sheriff’s Department, has been criticized in past years for the quality of care offered by deputies as well as nurses from the county Health Care Agency.

In 2018, a county grand jury issued a report concluding that 44% of the Orange County jail deaths since 2015 may have been preventable. The report points to delays in treatment, failure to identify health threats when booking inmates, failure to diagnose serious mental illness and a slowness in referring inmates to a health care professional. Each problem increased the likeliness that an inmate would not “make it out alive,” the report said.

Source: Orange County Register