Death of Florida woman probed after her removal from hospital

A woman has died after she was handcuffed and forcibly removed from a hospital where she was seeking treatment.

Barbara Dawson, 57, collapsed Monday while being escorted in handcuffs from the Liberty Calhoun Hospital, where she sought treatment for breathing difficulties, Blountstown police Chief Mark Mallory said Tuesday. Dawson was arrested for disorderly conduct and trespassing.

Parks’ law firm, the Tallahassee-based Parks and Crump, has represented black families in high-profile national cases, including the shooting deaths of black men Trayvon Martin in Florida and Michael Brown in Missouri. At that time, relatives say Ms. Dawson was having trouble breathing and requested an oxygen tank from hospital staff. A nurse said the tank was not necessary, according to relatives, and Ms. Dawson continued to cite breathing problems while police escorted her to a patrol auto.

Mallory said the officer who was escorting Dawson out of the hospital asked for help after she collapsed and failed to respond to verbal commands.

‘The most reasonable thing to do is to let her sit there and be able to settle down until she felt well.

“And then they’re going to try and take the handcuff off her”, said Angela Donar, Barbara Dawson’s aunt.

As an officer opened the squad auto, Ms. Dawson collapsed. Police say officers were called when she refused to leave after being treated and cleared for release.

“Our staff was very aggressive with her treatment”, Attaway told the newspaper.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials have been called in to investigate, department spokesman Steve Arthur told AP. She said a doctor couldn’t detect a pulse from her niece before she was taken into the hospital.

At 6:24 a.m., less than two hours after the police had initially been summoned, Dawson died. Medical staff remained with Ms. Dawson and checked her vital signs on several occasions. Something happened in course of them taking her to the vehicle that alerted them that they needed to go back inside.

The local NAACP chapter held an emergency meeting on the matter Tuesday afternoon. Outside the hospital, Dawson continued to plead for her oxygen and begged the police officer not to take her to jail.

“Those that were responsible for her death… need to be held accountable in a court of law”, Dale Landry, Tallahassee NAACP chapter president, told WCTV. “They got the doctor to come out there and get a pulse of her and they couldn’t get no pulse”.