The Sad Truth About Miscarriages
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Wednesday, January 31, 2007)— A woman whose premature baby died the day after she was arrested has sued the Kansas City Police Department and two officers who repeatedly ignored her pleas for medical help while they were arresting her.
A police videotape released Tuesday shows Sofia Salva telling police officers numerous times on Feb. 5, 2006, that she was (three months) pregnant, bleeding and needed to go to a hospital.
After the ninth request, a female officer asked: "How is that my problem?"
Salva, a Sudanese native, was held overnight on traffic violations and outstanding city warrants. After being released the next morning, she delivered a premature baby boy who died after one minute, according to a lawsuit Salva filed Friday in Jackson County Circuit Court.
Salva sued officers Melody Spencer and Kevin Schnell and the Police Department for wrongful death, personal injuries and failure to provide medical assistance. Salva is seeking actual damages exceeding $25,000 and punitive damages to punish and deter such conduct in the future.
"The officers went into this with a preconceived idea of who and what they were dealing with, and they were wrong," said Salva's attorney, Andrew Protzman. "It's tragic."
Well, the bottom line is that medical attention would not have affected this outcome at all. If someone is having a miscarriage, we are powerless to stop it. As long as we are pretty sure a patient does not have an ectopic pregnancy and is not suffering a life-threatening (to the mother) amount of bleeding, then all we can do is pat them on the shoulder and wish them well. Maybe we administer the occasional shot of Rhogam, for whatever that's worth.
"Wrongful death?" ...ridiculous.
"Personal injuries?" ...apparently not.
"Failure to provide medical assistance?" ...that all-important pat on the shoulder, I guess.
Should the officers have taken the woman to a hospital?
Probably. She might have had an ectopic pregnancy and died.
Did they cause harm to the mother or fetus by not doing so?
Not this time.
Does she deserve any financial compensation?
I say no.
Labels: general interest, medical
posted by scalpel at 5:11 AM
21 Comments:
Something about this whole tale sounds fishy to me.
First, it's almost impossible to determine the sex of a three-month pregnancy, and there is no way a "premature baby boy"..."died after one minute of life". The story makes it sound like either the details of the miscarriage are being exaggerated to garner support for the woman, or she was a lot further along than 3 months pregnant.
Second, the behavior of the police is appalling. I can't imagine any police ignoring a woman's repeated statement that she is bleeding, nor can I believe they didn't take her to the hospital, even under guard, for evaluation.
So again, I think there is a lot more to this story than we are hearing.
You are right, though, in pointing out there is nothing the medical profession can do to prevent a miscarriage/spontaneous abortion. Even taking the woman immediately to the hospital may not have prevented the abortion, but the need for medical evaluation is important, even for those under arrest.
Police ignoring the pleas of a pregnant woman who is bleeding? Excuse me but they do not deserve to be walking free amongst us, much less wearing a uniform. This is not about the options for medical intervention in miscarriage. This is about human decency.
Realistically, the police aren't going to keep an officer at the bedside maintaining her custody for the several hours it would take in an ER to establish that she wasn't in immediate danger. Even if they did take her to the hospital and wait with her for a serum pregnancy test, a type and screen, and a pelvic examination + ultrasound....then what?
What if they discovered a live intrauterine pregnancy and no ectopic pregnancy, but she was still bleeding? Say they discovered a fetal demise with inevitable abortion and she was still bleeding? Can they not arrest criminals with threatened or inevitable miscarriages? Does every woman on her menses get an automatic "get out of jail free" card?
I think it's an interesting question.
To protect and serve. The lady must have been obviously bleeding so a doctor should have been called, no police officer in their right mind would take a prisoner to and ER. The police doctor would have been called for a consult. Something is fishy here, where is the report from?
I agree, nothing can be done to stop the miscairrage, but at least where I work, it is unfathomable that she was not brought for medical evauation. Where I work the police bring the most stupid hangnail, no-injury cases for medical clearance and the magic piece of paper that says "ok to book" so they are not liable. ANY car accident is brought for evaluation even if the patient has been walking around for two hours and claims they have no injury.
I respect the cops but I also wonder if any af my "Ok to book" patients get the crap beat out of them AFTER I give medical clearance.
It is an interesting question all the way around. Because I wonder if male police would have been more chivalrous and given her the benefit of the doubt, allowing her to go to the ER---but it was simply her bad luck to be arrested by less sympathetic female officers...
Scalpel,
That you know the list of possible problems and outcomes is not the same as those police officers knowing the possible problems and outcomes. That there was nothing seriously wrong that would have been changed one way or another is a happy accident. The police officers are not qualified to make such medical decisions and your defense of them is tantamount to endorsing them.
So if the woman had some other problem that was much more serious and had resulted in a tragic and preventable outcome (which is exactly what the officers should have feared, lacking any medical training), would you have anyone believe that you would have defended their decision then?
I hope not, and this means that your evaluation is based on the outcome and not the method. As a man of medicine and science, this should sit ill with you. If an FP performed a complicated surgery far outside his training but had a good outcome, I doubt you would claim that there shouldn't be some punishment for his hubris and the patient's endangerment.
Those police officers should be punished, and the risk to which they subjected that woman should be recognized.
Outcome be damned.
I said that the officers probably should have taken the woman to the hospital for medical clearance, and I was just pointing out the difficulties of doing so. This was already a woman who was "flying under the radar." She had almost $5000 worth of unpaid tickets and warrants, and she refused to properly identify herself when legally ordered to do so. You think she would have returned for her court date?
I didn't address whether or not I thought the officers should be punished, but I definitely don't think this woman deserves any financial award. She brought the situation upon herself, and her miscarriage was not affected by her arrest.
In my opinion the officers should be reprimanded and the department policy about medical clearance of prisoners re-evaluated.
The sad truth is that a police officer is eminently unqualified to make any kind of medical decision and that city will be sued and will lose a handsome amount of money when the case is presented to an equally unqualified jury of her peers.
My previous job was at a hospital that had a city contract to treat prisoners. Enough people had been jailed while having heart attacks, asthma attacks, diabetic crises, or whatever else, followed by the inevitable wrongful death suits and fat payouts when the police response was "tell it to the judge", that the police eventually brought almost every arrestee in for a medical evaluation. Any kind of medical history would warrant an ER eval. Mumps as a child? Take him to the hospital for clearance. They also used the ER to take pressure off of overcrowded holding cells.
It was all a huge waste of resources and money. Now, with the city in more dire financial circumstances and an onerous federal consent decree hovering over them, they simply release most people with promises to appear. I recently blogged about one such person, he assaulted someone with a knife, who was released into my custody. I'm not a custodian.
The sensible solution, and the thing that nobody seems to be doing, would be to hire a nurse and buy a Sam's Club jar of Ibuprofen and do a little triaging at the lock-up.
Bleeding woman should have been checked out. Then she could sue the hospital for killing her child and the police would be exonerated of any liability.
"Realistically, the police aren't going to keep an officer at the bedside maintaining her custody for the several hours it would take in an ER to establish that she wasn't in immediate danger."
They don't need to keep an officer at the bedside. After all, if it's just traffic violations and misdemeanor warrants, what's the big deal with citing her out and releasing her? And half that $5000 is probably court costs. And cops will hang out several hours waiting to get a blood test if it's a DWI case, so what's the big deal with waiting here?
Is a wrongful death verdict warranted? Well, that's even more of an interesting question than you think because it begs the question of whether a fetus is a "life" under the law and entitled to damages. But putting that aside, without knowing the state of her pregnancy before and seeing the medical records after, it's impossible to opine on how the police officers' actions impacted the pregnancy.
If she was in pain, however, and that pain could have been alleviated by what the jury decides is necessary action by the officers, then that has a value that should be compensated.
I suspect that the plan was to book her and hold her overnight to be seen by a judge in the morning for a hearing. Apparently they were tired of citing and releasing her because she kept disappearing. Thus the huge stack of unpaid tickets and warrants.
My point with this post was that nobody can affect the course of a miscarriage in progress one way or the other, therefore making the concept of damages seem utterly ridiculous. The police (and the city) neither caused nor could have prevented this miscarriage. I'm trying to provide some balance to all of the "arrest those damn whitey cops!" posts around the blogosphere.
Many arrestees are in pain for one reason or another. That is simply more distraction from the issues at hand. Regardless, I haven't seen it mentioned that she ever reported pain.
I agree with you, then. Except, I don't see where it is said that she was having a "miscarriage". Are there not other reasons for the symptoms she described (and admittedly, we're using a news story for our info) short of a miscarriage?
The reason it's probably said the baby lived one minute is so the baby can actually have a wrongful death claim. The statute might require life outside the womb.
Well, I for one and glad I'm not living in Kansas City.
"Realistically, the police aren't going to keep an officer at the bedside maintaining her custody for the several hours it would take in an ER to establish that she wasn't in immediate danger."
Huh? Of course they do.
I suppose this whole thing depends on what state you live in. Where I work (in L&D in a large public hospitalin NYC) every single pregnant prisoner must be brought to the hospital for "clearance" before setting one toe in a holding cell or even a court. Now, this does get abused by savvy gals who claim they are pregnant because it will delay the inevitable lock-up. They know they have to be checked out, that it sometimes take hours and that they may get some juice and Lorna Doones for the trip back in the squad car. This is indeed irritating, and it happens all the time. Half the time they aren't pregnant at all, and the other 25% of the time they are perfectly healthy pregnant shoplifters.
But that leaves 25%. They are the bleeders, the ones who have their due date way off, the ones with raging diabetes or, in most cases severe PIH. Then they get admitted and do end up with an officer bedside. Police officers should have zero input on whether or not a bleeding woman--pregnant or not-- should be held without being checked by a physician. To imply that since she may be a flight risk, had already cost her county $5000 in unpaid tickets and was "already under the radar" and therefore should be held in a cell without medical attention is irresponsible. The officers should absolutely be punished, regardless of her lawsuit.
That being said, there are giant holes in this whole story. Yes, there's nothing that could be done to save a three month pregnancy, but that is assuming she was actually three months along. Perhaps she was six and her claim was altered to make the police less blameful. Nothing makes sense regarding the "died after one minute of life" other than that it creates grounds for wrongful death. But she would have absolutely no case without the medical record of the delivery, where if the baby actually was born alive would have been reflected in the apgar scores. If there's a score of more than 0/0 on a three month fetus, that's one crazy pediatrician! The whole thing is fishy, right down to the damages claim. $25,000? perhaps that buys a lot in Kansas, but this case would be worth millions in the city (not that it's right, it just is).
This is all very interesting. But, did anyone see any sign of pain or injury or for that matter any sign of blood. She is clearly smiling on the camera. She shows absolutely no sign of pain or injury and most importantly, there is a clear picture of her white pants without any sign of blood in the front or the back. If a woman was having a miscarriage, what signs and symptoms would be present? Cramping, bleeding, painful facial expressions or maybe even holding of the stomach? Any physical presence of pain. Yet, you don't see any of those. Why do you think that is?
Come on man, did the police oficers know that? Did they know that this is _only_ an unstoppable event? But, I guess, she was only sudanese.
Maybe people with serious medical conditions like coronary artery disease, diabetes, asthma, or...ahem...pregnancy should think twice before engaging in criminal activity. Right? Maybe a life of crime is a luxury that the chronically ill cannot afford.
So many misinformed comments!
First of all, if you listen to the audio of this arrest, you can hear the woman quite clearly begging to be let go to the hospital as she is pregnant and bleeding. The officers were CLEARLY uncaring.
Secondly, how on earth can anyone assume that there is no way this miscarriage could have been prevented?!?
The stress alone could have caused it.
I sympathize with Kansas City police officers Spencer and Schnell. They were reasonable to assume that a woman lingering in a liquor store (as Sophia Salva was doing) was not in need of immediate medical care. If she needed care, why wasn't Salva taking action to get it? Why was she instead browsing liquor shelves? That's very strange behavior for someone in a medical crisis. Moreover, Salva had a record of deceit and lawbreaking; this entitled the officers to view her claims with a certain skepticism.
Bottom line: Had I been in the officers' shoes I would have assumed, like the officers, that Salva was pulling the officers' leg, and would have acted as they did. Surely the officers should not be fired for their mistake. This is mob justice its worst.
Our law enforcement officers deserve a fair shake. Officers Spencer and Schnell didn't get one. Their firing is a gross injustice
Dr. Scalpel: how important do you think it is to give Rhogam in the first trimester for a spont ab?
Enough to have mentioned it.
I had the exact same experience. I was having a miscarriage on Labor Day and as any normal pregnant woman would react, I called my doctor and was told to get in to be checked immediately. I got pulled over by two cops (the female pulled me over while her male partner checked the radar) at a speed trap. I told the female cop that I was on my way to the doctor because I was having a miscarriage. She ignored me, asked for my license and registration, and proceeded to check my background for 10 minutes while I was heavily bleeding all over my seat. After she was done checking my background she gave me back my license and registration and told me to slow down. No sorry to hear you're losing your baby, no sorry to have taken so long while you were losing precious blood, she just gave me a stern "slow down" and walked away. I guess I should be grateful she didn't give me a ticket (she can't arrest me since I have a clean record). Had she given me a ticket, I would have gone to court to fight it and any reasonable judge would throw the book at her (key word being reasonable). One would think a female cop would be more sympathetic towards the plights of another woman right? The sad thing was her male partner heard my reason and visibly cringed and was very polite towards me. But the female cop was on her power trip and couldn't care less.
Just a FYI, I did lose the baby and no there is no stopping a miscarriage if it's happening. But what can be done is medical attention so the woman does not lose too much blood or worse, have an etopic pregnancy that requires immediate surgery. So that 10 minutes could have meant life and death for me. Thankfully I survived through the ordeal with no permanent damage (other than losing the baby that is). But this definitely lets me know where my health or that of my unborn child rank on the radar of cops.
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