Autopsy results expected for woman removed from hospital

Darryl Parks said he was “very concerned” about the conduct of hospital staff and the police department.

An autopsy on Dawson has been performed and the results should be released Wednesday, Mallory said. Police were finally called to the scene, and when Dawson declined several requests by police that she leave, she was placed under arrest.

The patient walked out of the ED under her own power, escorted by our officer.

“Based on information from the 14th District ME’s office, Ms. Dawson passed away due to pulmonary saddle embolus, or a blood clot in her lungs”, Attaway said.

She “pleaded for her oxygen” again, and told the officer not to take her to jail. Once they were outside, Dawson collapsed, and the officers removed the handcuffs. The policeman then uncuffed her and summoned medical assistance, Mallory said.

Mallory also says she was taken out of the handcuffs and transported into the hospital and that she had a pulse and was breathing at that time. Dawson was black, the family’s lawyer said.

At 6:24 a.m., less than two hours after the police had initially been summoned, Dawson died.

During a news conference later Wednesday, Calhoun Liberty Hospital CEO Ruth Atttaway said the hospital would cooperate with state investigators who are looking into the matter and the circumstances of Dawson’s death would be fully reviewed.

Some of those visits, too, had ended in conflict – Donar told the Democrat that staff at Calhoun Liberty had called the police on Dawson before, and once kicked her off the premises when she brought a friend in for treatment. “They did everything they could”. Despite that, hospital staff did not attempt CPR until Dawson was back inside the building.

Relatives told the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper that she felt she needed more medical care. “Instead, she is forcibly removed and put in cuffs”, the family’s attorney, Daryl Parks, told AP. ‘The early facts of this case should cause a great concern for everyone’.

Dawson was the second of nine children.

Doctors tried to readmit Dawson when she collapsed.

In addition, the Calhoun-Liberty County chapter of the NAACP held an emergency meeting on Tuesday.

“If her death was wrongfully determined, then somehow, someway, there needs to be some sort of recompense to the family”, Dale Landry of the Florida NAACP said in a statement. The medical staff maintains they did everything they could to save her.

Once law enforcement got involved, he said, medical personnel and the officer did not take proper precautions given Dawson’s medical condition.