Florida Woman Dies While Being Forcibly Removed From Hospital

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

Blountstown Police Chief Mark Mallory said Dawson’s handcuff were removed and the officer quickly signaled for medical help.

The hospital called officers, who arrested her for disorderly conduct and trespassing.

The hospital’s chief administrator and CEO Ruth Attaway said hospital staff cleared Dawson to be released after she was treated but called police when she refused to leave.

Investigators from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have been called in to investigate Dawson’s death.

Tallahassee attorney Daryl Parks is representing Dawson’s family.

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’s family says she used an oxygen tank 24-7.

Less than two hours later, at 6.24am, she was pronounced dead.

Dawson felt, however, that she needed to remain in the hospital for continued care, telling hospital staff that she “still was not feeling well”, relatives told the Tallahassee Democrat.

Dawson collapsed as officers tried to put her in the police cruiser. The officer uncuffed her and hospital staff wheeled her back into the hospital, though her vital signs looked good. “The early facts of this case should cause a great concern for everyone”.

Hospital staff checked her vital signs three times and said the patient was “fine” but they were overruled by a doctor who readmitted her. “Our staff was very aggressive with her treatment. And so I told them, ‘y’all done kill her”, said Angela Donar, Barbara Dawson’s aunt. But a doctor made a decision to wheel her back into the facility anyway. Once law enforcement got involved, he said, medical personnel and the officer did not take proper precautions given Dawson’s medical condition. Audio from the squad car’s dashboard camera will be released before Friday, but the camera did not capture video of the incident.

“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 Tallahassee NAACP chapter had an emergency meeting on the matter Tuesday. “Because here we have an innocent person taken into custody and now they’ve lost their life when all they did was come and ask for medical help”.