Family says Justice Center jail workers failed to treat ectopic pregnancy, even after finding Chuniece Patterson screaming on the floor and splashing toilet water on her face.
Chundra L. Smith (left) and Carrie Virginia Patterson (right), Chuniece Patterson's mother and grandmother, say she died because the Justice Center jail knew she was pregnant but failed to give her proper care that would have detected an ectopic pregnancy. They are shown at Smith's house praying with Pastor Percy Bivins of Lighthouse of Love Ministries.
Chuniece Patterson was pregnant and complaining of abdominal pain in her cell at the Justice Center jail in Syracuse.
Fourteen hours later, she was dead.
Chuniece PattersonThe jail’s records of Patterson’s medical care give no indication that anyone examined her abdomen. No pelvic exam. No ultrasound. Any of them would’ve shown she had an ectopic pregnancy in her fallopian tube and would’ve probably indicated that it had ruptured, according to a doctor. Surgery could’ve saved her life, he said.
The records of Patterson’s two-day stay at the Justice Center in November describe a night of torment, with Patterson screaming and rolling on the cement floor of her cell for most of those 14 hours. Patterson leaned against her cell toilet, scooping water out with a cup and splashing it onto her face, a deputy reported.
Patterson, 21, of Syracuse, was pronounced dead at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 12 at University Hospital after she was taken unconscious from her cell. Her mother, Chundra Smith, has filed a notice with Onondaga County saying she plans to sue. She claims the county’s negligent medical care caused her daughter’s death.
A state commission is investigating. The same agency found fault with a similar death in the county jail 14 years ago.
Patterson found out when she was admitted to the jail Nov. 10 that she was two months’ pregnant, her family said. The fact that she was pregnant was noted in her medical record at the jail.
A jail nurse visited Patterson in her cell three times between 6:30 p.m. Nov. 11 and 1:45 a.m. Nov. 12, the medical records show. No one examined her abdomen or ordered an ultrasound or pelvic exam, the records show.
In the first visit, registered nurse Missy Clayton made no mention in her notes that she took Patterson’s blood pressure or temperature.
In the next visit, two hours later, Patterson was on the cell floor, where she had vomited, the records show. Her “pelvic soreness had subsided,” Clayton’s notes said.
Clayton did not record her observations at the time of her visits, as other nurses did when they checked Patterson. She wrote them as late entries after Patterson died, according to the notes.
If a pregnant patient has frequent abdominal pain and vomiting, most nurses would err on the side of caution and get a physician to do an examination, according to Dr. David Thomson, emergency room physician at St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center.
Deputy Diane Stech wrote in a report that when she started her shift, another deputy told her Patterson had been moaning overnight and complaining that she was having trouble breathing. Stech was making rounds in the morning of Nov. 12 when she saw Patterson on the floor four times between 7 a.m. and 7:45 a.m., she said.
The first time, Patterson obeyed Stech’s order to get up, the report said. Fifteen minutes later, Patterson was on the floor again, leaning on the toilet and splashing water in her face, Stech wrote. The deputy told her to stop and Patterson rolled onto the floor, the report said.
At 7:30 a.m., Stech found Patterson on the floor again. The deputy went into the cell, saw the plastic cup in the toilet and removed it, the report said.
“I looked down at inmate Patterson, again told inmate to get off the floor,” Stech wrote. “It looked as if the inmate looked at me. I continued with my tour.”
Inmate Rhonda Dunn said she saw Patterson through her cell window. Patterson was lying on the floor, Dunn said. She’d heard Patterson moaning all night, and watched her writhing in pain, Dunn said.
“I was like, ‘Miss Diane, get over there!’” Dunn said she told Stech.
On her last visit to Patterson’s cell, Stech found her unresponsive, the report said. Stech called in other deputies and medical workers, who tried to revive her, the records show.
Neither Stech nor Clayton could be reached for comment. The chief jail deputy, Richard Carbery, refused to comment. Health Commissioner Dr. Cynthia Morrow also would not comment.
Patterson’s lawyer, Janet Izzo, noted the medical records show the nurses failed to respond properly to a pregnant woman’s complaints of persistent and severe abdominal pain.
“That should’ve triggered someone to do something else for this kid,” Izzo said.
Dr. Gerson Weiss, an obstetrician and gynecologist at New Jersey Medical Center, said abdominal pain and severe vomiting in a pregnant woman should prompt an examination.
“Her abdomen has to be examined and she needs a pelvic exam,” said Weiss, who was speaking in general and not about Patterson’s case. “In all likelihood, if someone had an ectopic pregnancy, they would’ve had discomfort and pain on examination.”
Once that pain is confirmed, medical staff would “very rapidly and easily” do an ultrasound to determine that the pregnancy is not in the uterus and must be somewhere else, Weiss said. That would require emergency surgery, he said.
“You can imagine that this evaluation in an examining room would take no more than five to 10 minutes,” Weiss said. “The diagnosis could be made and she could then be booked for emergency surgery.”
Onondaga County Medical Examiner Dr. Robert Stoppacher ruled that Patterson died of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy.
The state Commission of Correction has investigated Patterson’s death and given a draft report of its findings to the county, Carbery said. He would not disclose the draft report.
Patterson started working as a dishwasher at a restaurant a week or so before her death, her family said.
She was arrested on a bench warrant Nov. 10 after she’d skipped her court date on charges related to one of her five arrests over five months. They included charges that Patterson walked into a South Side convenience store drunk in August, broke a glass counter by slamming a beer bottle on it, then smashed a glass door by punching it. She then walked out with two stolen beers, according to court records.
Two months earlier, she was arrested for throwing a beer through her friend’s living room window during a fight. And in July, she was charged with smashing another friend’s cell phone as he tried to call 911 while they fought, court records said.
In the mid-1990s, the Commission of Correction and the U.S. Justice Department called on the county to establish better ways of handling patients with chronic illnesses. The Justice Department said in 1994 that the jail’s medical care was grossly inadequate.
Patterson was the second inmate to die from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy in the past 14 years. In the previous case, the Commission of Correction found that three nurses and a doctor at the jail repeatedly failed to monitor inmate Lucinda Batts’ worsening condition before she collapsed and died from an ectopic pregnancy. Her death in March 1996 could have been prevented with proper medical care at the jail, the state found.
Patterson’s mother started hearing about Batts’ case soon after Patterson’s death.
“People were coming to my house telling me about it,” Smith said. “It made me think, ‘Wow, change has to happen.’ This time, in the name of Jesus, it will happen.”
Contact John O’Brien at jobrien@syracuse.com or 470-2187.