Heartbreaking lack of humanity in Knoxville; woman dies after hospital refused to let her stay and police arrest her for trespassing

[itsheresomewhere]

1 hour ago, happi duck said:

How could the cops, grown adults, not conceive of "maybe her condition changed and we should call an ambulance"?

 

In a way I can see how they couldn’t tell.  Unfortunately, it is hard for a lot of cops to tell who is faking and who really needs medical attention.  They become desensitized to it due to abuse.  This only hurts those who need medical assistance. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

1 hour ago, easypeasy said:

Because then the hospital becomes a hangout spot for transients and unhomed people.

Several libraries in my area struggle with this predicament. They welcome everyone - but then families stop patronizing certain locations because the unhoused population sort of takes over the sitting areas and bathrooms. I volunteer with homeless shelters and even I've been caught off guard walking into a library and passing by dozens of homeless individuals camped out in various places in the library. Moms are nervous to let their kids wander through the stacks or go to the bathrooms unattended.

There are no easy answers, unfortunately.

Since the only homeless shelter  in my area closed due to security issues(the almost daily fights and assaults made it unsafe but they could not find the funding to have a trained security guard 24/7) this has been a massive issue in my area.  There is just no place to go.  The police chief was allowing homeless people to sleep in the police station because the situation is that unsafe, which made people(city council people who like to pretend the unhoused don’t exists here) very upset and his employment was terminated.  People can’t stay in the ER though; there’s not enough beds and there’s not enough open chairs in the waiting room. If someone refuses to leave, they absolutely do call the police to remove them.

Catholic charities will temporarily pay for a cheap motel, but now that’s a problem finding motels to take the unhoused people due to drug and alcohol use and assaults, so now CC is paying for chain motels like Country inn and Suites, but I’m starting to hear complaints because of the same issues and now the usual clientele that would stay in those places won’t use them.

We do have plenty of subsidized housing. The problem is that one has to be sober and clean to stay there, and that is non negotiable.

in any case, I cannot fathom why the police officers didn’t see the change in her status and call an ambulance. law enforcement where I work calls an ambulance for anyone acting slightly out of the ordinary due to liability and lack of medical training.  

And yes; there is absolutely bias towards anyone signficantly overweight and/or poor in healthcare.  There’s some training to combat that, but truthfully I think society as a whole is biased against people who live in poverty and people who are morbidly obese.  I lost almost seventy pounds in 2020, and the change in how people, especially strangers, treat me is enormous.  

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

Also first responders are not trained or equipped to do primarily social work, but we get it dumped on us.  And screw it up.  But that doesn’t give anyone a pass to be a jerk. 
Which Is why I teach mental health emergencies for first responders and other such classes.  None of us signed up to be social workers, but here we are, and first responder education needs to broadly change to reflect that.  Fortunately there is a lot of movement towards that at least at my state level. 

 

[SKL]

I do think cops should be trained to recognize basic signs of medical emergencies, and they should receive refresher courses over time.  The courses that my kids and I have taken with the Red Cross or CERT have made us aware that some of the weird behavior could have been due to a medical emergency.  However, without training, I don't know that it's obvious to everyone.  And, I can't guarantee I would always think of that immediately in the heat of the moment.  I don't know that we can blame cops who were not well trained in this regard if they think their charge is just being difficult, especially when the hospital personnel told them exactly that.  They have no way of knowing how the patient acts when everything is normal.

If the video was over an hour long, it sounds like the cops put some time into trying to get this lady to a place where she could hang out until a more permanent destination was found for her.  I'm sure they weren't doing all that for kicks, but actually intended to do their job (as they saw it) even though it was taking a lot longer than one would expect.  Some of the language was unacceptable - I think we'd all agree on that.

If the cops did decide to take the lady back to the hospital while she was still in essentially the same condition she was in when they picked her up, why do people think the hospital would have taken her back in and done anything for her?

[Corraleno]

43 minutes ago, SKL said:

If the video was over an hour long, it sounds like the cops put some time into trying to get this lady to a place where she could hang out until a more permanent destination was found for her.  I'm sure they weren't doing all that for kicks, but actually intended to do their job (as they saw it) even though it was taking a lot longer than one would expect. 

They put no effort whatsoever into trying to get her to a place she could hang out — unless you count lying on a sidewalk, half dressed in 23* degree weather.

As soon as he arrived, the first cop immediately told her she had to "roll on out of here" and then the security guy said the wheelchair belonged to the hospital, so he told her to get up and walk out of there, and she said she couldn't walk. The cop then told her that she was going to jail if she wouldn't just get up and leave. The only reason they spent an hour with her was because they couldn't physically shove her into the paddy wagon due to her weight and immobility, and they had to wait for another cop to come with a cruiser that they could load her into.

No one suggested calling social services, they just decided she was perfectly fine and capable of walking and was purposely being a pain in the ass, so she was going to jail. At one point she asked them to call "the preacher," which I guess may have been the chaplain? The cop says "what's his number?" and she says she doesn't know and he impatiently says "well then how am I supposed to know it??"

[bookbard]

I think after so many incidents that the system of 'relying on people being decent human beings' is not effective. Therefore, there needs to be very strict and clear systems so that police, healthcare, teachers and others in community work know exactly what to do. Because what seems normal and natural and human is evidently NOT to a lot of the workers out there. 

Did you see the one earlier this week where the real estate person saw a man groaning on the floor (of the house she was inspecting) and did not call for help? He died. The woman does not think she did anything wrong. 

There needs to be explicit rules, therefore, so these people don't have to think or make decisions based on ethics. Because while that system might work a lot of the time, when it doesn't, it's tragic. 

Edited to add: this relates to Covid as well. We saw when the govt relied on people making "personal risk assessments" and "personal decisions" that Covid spread and has killed millions. Whereas when there were very clear rules and boundaries, Covid was contained. 

Edited March 1, 2023 by bookbard

[Corraleno]

WaPo is reporting that medical records indicate that Lisa suffered cardiac arrest in the back of the cruiser. 

Also, Lisa's DIL confirmed that she has been using a wheelchair since her stroke in 2019, which affected her left side and after which "she was not able to open and close her hand, walk, none of that."

Edited March 2, 2023 by Corraleno

[KSera]

25 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Also, Lisa's DIL confirmed that she has been using a wheelchair since her stroke in 2019, which affected her left side and after which "she was not able to open and close her hand, walk, none of that."

I noticed in a news story picture of her with her granddaughter that she was in a wheelchair at whatever point that was taken. Which made me wonder why she was being discharged from the hospital without a wheelchair she could take home with her. It doesn't make any sense. I haven't watched the video, but from descriptions, I can't wrap my brain around officers repeatedly telling a woman in her condition who says she can't walk to stand up and walk. Have they never heard of people being unable to walk? I don't understand it at all.

[easypeasy]

30 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

WaPo is reporting that medical records indicate that Lisa suffered cardiac arrest in the back of the cruiser — a detail that the police & DA's office left out as they rushed to exonerate the cops and insist that “at no time did law enforcement interaction cause or contribute to Ms. Edwards’ death.” 

Also, Lisa's DIL confirmed that she has been using a wheelchair since her stroke in 2019, which affected her left side and after which "she was not able to open and close her hand, walk, none of that."

 

2 minutes ago, KSera said:

I noticed in a news story picture of her with her granddaughter that she was in a wheelchair at whatever point that was taken. Which made me wonder why she was being discharged from the hospital without a wheelchair she could take home with her. It doesn't make any sense. I haven't watched the video, but from descriptions, I can't wrap my brain around officers repeatedly telling a woman in her condition who says she can't walk to stand up and walk. Have they never heard of people being unable to walk? I don't understand it at all.

Do we know how she arrived to the hospital in the first place? Was she brought by ambulance? That would explain why she didn't have her wheelchair with her - but the hospital should have known that and made alternative arrangements (working with social services) for her to get home successfully.

So many moments to do the right thing here and so many dropped balls.

(again, with the acknowledgement that most of the medical staff is probably doing the best they can, but c'mon!!)

[KSera]

4 minutes ago, easypeasy said:

 

Do we know how she arrived to the hospital in the first place? Was she brought by ambulance? That would explain why she didn't have her wheelchair with her - but the hospital should have known that and made alternative arrangements (working with social services) for her to get home successfully.

So many moments to do the right thing here and so many dropped balls.

(again, with the acknowledgement that most of the medical staff is probably doing the best they can, but c'mon!!)

It looks like she was brought by paramedics. That could explain the lack of her personal wheelchair. Which is major failing of hospital to release someone who was previously wheelchair bound in a nursing home and expect her to somehow just leave the property under her own power?

Quote

Lisa Edwards flew from Rhode Island, where she was in a nursing home, to Knoxville, and during the flight, she began complaining of abdominal plane, according to the Knox County District Attorney. A release from the DA’s office said that once the plane landed at McGee Tyson Airport, she was taken by paramedics to Blount Memorial Hospital, where she was diagnosed with constipation before she was discharged.

It also seems like police should have interfaced with medical staff in some way, to understand her situation. I still find it bizarre they assumed she was faking and really could walk. The whole situation is a failure on so many counts.

[Corraleno]

16 minutes ago, easypeasy said:

Do we know how she arrived to the hospital in the first place? Was she brought by ambulance? 

EMTs took her directly from the airport to the 1st hospital (who dismissed her pain as nothing more than "constipation"), so she called an ambulance to take her from there to the 2nd hospital. When KPD arrived, she was sitting in a wheelchair in the parking garage.

There's no indication anywhere in the video that she was ever able to walk, or that the cops were ever told that she could walk. When the security guy says the wheelchair belongs to the hospital, and Lisa says she can't walk, the cop just instantly assumes she's lying. No one ever attempted to arrange for another wheelchair, or even find out if it was true she couldn't walk, they just kept yelling at her to "walk" and "use your legs" and "stop playing games" and insist that they know she's faking and she can walk, while she's moaning "my legs, my legs" as they try to force her to stand up, walk, and step into the van.  

It's obvious that she's had a prior stroke and cannot use her left arm — I just cannot fathom how multiple cops could look at a clearly disabled, morbidly obese, 60 yr old stroke victim who is sitting in a wheelchair, and repeatedly insist they know she's faking it when she says she can't walk, when they literally have no evidence whatsoever that she can walk and never make any attempt to verify that.

[kbutton]

4 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

EMTs took her directly from the airport to the 1st hospital (who dismissed her pain as nothing more than "constipation"), so she called an ambulance to take her from there to the 2nd hospital. When KPD arrived, she was sitting in a wheelchair in the parking garage.

So...was she admitted for observation at the 2nd hospital, or was she never admitted?

[KSera]

7 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I just cannot fathom how multiple cops could look at a clearly disabled, morbidly obese, 60 yr old stroke victim who is sitting in a wheelchair, and repeatedly insist they know she's faking it when she says she can't walk, when they literally have no evidence whatsoever that she can walk and never make any attempt to verify that.

Right?! This is the same thing I can’t get over (I mean, in addition to the other things). It just defies all common sense. It’s like they have zero experience with life or people or something. Like they are robots who never encountered a disabled person before. 

[Corraleno]

48 minutes ago, kbutton said:

So...was she admitted for observation at the 2nd hospital, or was she never admitted?

She was admitted to the 2nd hospital, kept overnight, and discharged very early in the morning. She did not want to leave the hospital after she was discharged, claiming she still needed help, and at some point the security guys pushed her into the parking garage, which is where she was when KPD arrived.

ETA: Apparently she arrived at the first hospital (Blount) just before 8 PM, later went to Fort Sanders around 1 AM, and was discharged around 7 AM. When KPD first arrives and asks the security guard how long she's been there, he says "all night," which suggests that she may have just been in the ER all night? I don't really know what counts as "admission" — like if she was just left sitting around the ER in a wheelchair, a doctor saw her briefly and made the same judgement the cops did (just a fat, poor, crazy old lady faking illness for attention), didn't bother doing any tests, and then said she was fine, would that count as "admission and discharge"?

Edited March 2, 2023 by Corraleno

[kbutton]

52 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I don't really know what counts as "admission" — like if she was just left sitting around the ER in a wheelchair, a doctor saw her briefly and made the same judgement the cops did (just a fat, poor, crazy old lady faking illness for attention), didn't bother doing any tests, and then said she was fine, would that count as "admission and discharge"?

It's not an admission if you sit in the ER all night. That's not good either. 

[Corraleno]

The main video, the one released by the police, doesn't have captions (other than what YouTube can autogenerate), and there's a lot of dialog that's hard to hear. I just saw a clip on a news report showing the initial interaction between Lisa and Officer Barnett when he first arrived, with actual captions.  He hadn't even gotten out of his car yet, he's talking to her through the window, and literally the first thing she told him was that she couldn't walk because of a stroke. This is the same cop who repeatedly says he knows she can walk, she was walking fine when she was discharged, she's just playing games, she's "dead weighting on purpose," etc.

Screenshot:

[DawnM]

I am not defending the hospital, but I will say that after having a year of Dad going in and out of hospitals, that they are very crowded and very short staffed.   

I do not believe my dad got all the care he needed and what he did get I fought for and it wasn't pleasant.   I argued with the doctors, the nurses, and finally the social worker for him to get the care he needed.   

I can see how someone without an advocate would just be ignored or worse.

[ktgrok]

On 2/28/2023 at 8:03 AM, Scarlett said:

I can’t bear to watch the video….can someone tell me why the hospital called the police on her in the first place?

The link doesn't take you right to the video, you can click on it and read the article. Then there is a link in the article (with a warning) to see the video. 

She was arrested for disorderly tresspassing after the hospital called the police. They had discharged her and she wouldn't leave. 

[katilac]

17 hours ago, DawnM said:

I am not defending the hospital, but I will say that after having a year of Dad going in and out of hospitals, that they are very crowded and very short staffed.   

I do not believe my dad got all the care he needed and what he did get I fought for and it wasn't pleasant.   I argued with the doctors, the nurses, and finally the social worker for him to get the care he needed.   

I can see how someone without an advocate would just be ignored or worse.

Absolutely. 

You have to be very present and very persistent. It's a shame, because people who aren't lucky enough to have advocates or, heck, even visitors! shouldn't automatically get worse health care, but they very commonly do. 

[Terabith]

This incident has prompted the hospital my husband works for to have a training on legal responsibility of facility for people and what they need to do.  It was a required training for everyone, not just clinical staff.  My husband does IT work and had to go.  

[Innisfree]

35 minutes ago, Terabith said:

This incident has prompted the hospital my husband works for to have a training on legal responsibility of facility for people and what they need to do.  It was a required training for everyone, not just clinical staff.  My husband does IT work and had to go.  

I hope hospitals everywhere are doing the same thing.

Do you know what the hospital’s perspective was on what should have happened?

[pinball]

44 minutes ago, Terabith said:

This incident has prompted the hospital my husband works for to have a training on legal responsibility of facility for people and what they need to do.  It was a required training for everyone, not just clinical staff.  My husband does IT work and had to go.  

What about morality training? 
 

[Murphy101]

On 3/2/2023 at 6:22 AM, DawnM said:

I am not defending the hospital, but I will say that after having a year of Dad going in and out of hospitals, that they are very crowded and very short staffed.   

I do not believe my dad got all the care he needed and what he did get I fought for and it wasn't pleasant.   I argued with the doctors, the nurses, and finally the social worker for him to get the care he needed.   

I can see how someone without an advocate would just be ignored or worse.

This. It’s my firm belief that interacting with medical or legal professionals without an advocate is always a near death experience.

For lots of reasons that have nothing to do with even presuming ill-will of those professionals.

The bottom line is we lack training and we lack numbers in both these fields and that absolutely affects the quality of the jobs they do for us.

That is not an excuse or a defense. It’s just a hard core fact that must be addressed if we are to do better for society.

But as things stand, who would want to enter those careers knowing how awful the working conditions and social perspective of the professions has become?  

[Terabith]

5 hours ago, Innisfree said:

I hope hospitals everywhere are doing the same thing.

Do you know what the hospital’s perspective was on what should have happened?

Honestly, my dh thinks this is a boilerplate training on hospital responsibilities that they tacked this case on to make it current.  He didn't say that the training said what should have happened, just that legally they were responsible for everything that happens while she's on their property, including in parking garages/ with police.  He's not clinical staff, though, so it's possible that they got something more.  

[Faith-manor]

39 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

This. It’s my firm belief that interacting with medical or legal professionals without an advocate is always a near death experience.

For lots of reasons that have nothing to do with even presuming ill-will of those professionals.

The bottom line is we lack training and we lack numbers in both these fields and that absolutely affects the quality of the jobs they do for us.

That is not an excuse or a defense. It’s just a hard core fact that must be addressed if we are to do better for society.

But as things stand, who would want to enter those careers knowing how awful the working conditions and social perspective of the professions has become?  

Agree whole heartedly! 

[pinball]

3 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Honestly, my dh thinks this is a boilerplate training on hospital responsibilities that they tacked this case on to make it current.  He didn't say that the training said what should have happened, just that legally they were responsible for everything that happens while she's on their property, including in parking garages/ with police.  He's not clinical staff, though, so it's possible that they got something more.  

So it was just a CYA, not a meaningful training that might possibly encourage a change in attitude 

[pinball]

42 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

This. It’s my firm belief that interacting with medical or legal professionals without an advocate is always a near death experience.

For lots of reasons that have nothing to do with even presuming ill-will of those professionals.

The bottom line is we lack training and we lack numbers in both these fields and that absolutely affects the quality of the jobs they do for us.

That is not an excuse or a defense. It’s just a hard core fact that must be addressed if we are to do better for society.

But as things stand, who would want to enter those careers knowing how awful the working conditions and social perspective of the professions has become?  

What near death experiences do legal professionals cause?

[wathe]

CYA training modules is a hospital administration specialty.  We do hours and hours of these every year at re-appointment time.  And every year, they tack on a few more.  There is no evidence to suggest that they make any difference in outcomes that I am aware of (other than CYA legal box ticking; staff-had-trraining-and-we-can-prove-it.

[DawnM]

53 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

This. It’s my firm belief that interacting with medical or legal professionals without an advocate is always a near death experience.

For lots of reasons that have nothing to do with even presuming ill-will of those professionals.

The bottom line is we lack training and we lack numbers in both these fields and that absolutely affects the quality of the jobs they do for us.

That is not an excuse or a defense. It’s just a hard core fact that must be addressed if we are to do better for society.

But as things stand, who would want to enter those careers knowing how awful the working conditions and social perspective of the professions has become?  

Unfortunately, service careers are no longer good careers.   Shortages and working conditions are horrible.   I am thinking specifically of public education and medicine.   

[katilac]

On 3/1/2023 at 2:51 PM, itsheresomewhere said:

In a way I can see how they couldn’t tell.  Unfortunately, it is hard for a lot of cops to tell who is faking and who really needs medical attention.  They become desensitized to it due to abuse.  This only hurts those who need medical assistance. 

But, again, there is no reason to treat anyone that way, including people who are faking a medical condition. 

[Murphy101]

6 hours ago, pinball said:

What near death experiences do legal professionals cause?

Police are certainly a part of the legal system and therefore legal professionals.  

But anyone who ever has to interact with the legal system is at risk if they don’t have advocates.  Most things people go to court for do not provide free legal counsel. And sadly, the free legal counsel is far below quality in every way simply because they are drowning in cases.

And let’s not forget, there’s a lot of things that can ruin a life besides death.

And to be clear - I’m a huge fan of good cops and lawyers.  The first thing all of us do when encountering a cop is call a family member and put it on speaker. The first thing we do when we have any legal question, is call a lawyer and refer to our lawyer. We all avoid going to medical appts without someone with us.

Because I’ve seen what happens when people don’t have an advocate and it’s downright terrifying. 

6 hours ago, DawnM said:

Unfortunately, service careers are no longer good careers.   Shortages and working conditions are horrible.   I am thinking specifically of public education and medicine.   

Our foundational infrastructure is scarily wobbly. Medical, education, and legal professions are foundations of a functioning society that can prosper from one generation to the next.

[Clemsondana]

8 hours ago, wathe said:

CYA training modules is a hospital administration specialty.  We do hours and hours of these every year at re-appointment time.  And every year, they tack on a few more.  There is no evidence to suggest that they make any difference in outcomes that I am aware of (other than CYA legal box ticking; staff-had-trraining-and-we-can-prove-it.

Yes!  I worked in a cancer research lab associated with a university hospital.  Our entire lab worked on yeast as a model for chromatin structure, but every year we had to do HIPAA training.  There may have been a couple of labs that worked with human tissue samples, but I only know of one MD in the building at the time so truly nobody worked with actual patients except for that one person, the center director.  Apparently they knew that we didn't work with patients so we got to do the short version.  Then I went to work at a community college, where I got to do FERPA.  OSHA training at both, although in my experience the OSHA instructors could rarely answer questions that were actually relavent to the work (I once watched a professor ask for several years running to how to dispose of a filtration device that had concentrated chemicals, and every year they said that they'd get back to him...it sat in a corner of the lab for I think 10+ years).  Radiation safety training was actually useful, in that the guy knew his stuff and we actually worked with radiation, although it was totally overkill for the kind of work that we did.  

[DawnM]

11 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

Our foundational infrastructure is scarily wobbly. Medical, education, and legal professions are foundations of a functioning society that can prosper from one generation to the next.

Very wobbly.   

Edited March 4, 2023 by DawnM

[DawnM]

What makes me the maddest about all of this?

This one made the news.   What about the hundreds of others who don't make the news?   We just have no idea.

[pinball]

11 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

Police are certainly a part of the legal system and therefore legal professionals.

That’s a hard no from me. Police are NOT legal professionals.

I’d classify them as part of the criminal justice system.

 

[Murphy101]

5 hours ago, pinball said:

That’s a hard no from me. Police are NOT legal professionals.

I’d classify them as part of the criminal justice system.

 

Eh? That’s splitting hairs imo. Unless you think the criminal justice system is illegal and doesn’t have professions.

While police are not lawyers, I still consider them a profession within the legal system, which includes the criminal justice system.

But no law says we have to agree.  

[TechWife]

On 2/28/2023 at 2:53 AM, SHP said:

 

NM and I can’t get this box to delete , sorry! 

Edited March 4, 2023 by TechWife