In the original civil suit a former inmate, Jeffrey Day, accused the county and its medical provider, NaphCare, of medical malpractice. Day was a passenger in a vehicle that was in an accident in Trotwood in 2015 and was held in the jail on a charge of obstructing justice because he wouldn’t answer questions from officers investigating the crash.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office was later added as a defendant and the case was moved to federal court, Dayton’s U.S. District Court.
In the suit Day claims that he suffered a broken pelvis in the crash, but that he was not given care when he needed it and had to have surgery once he was released.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Rose recently denied a motion from the defendants to grant complete summary judgment in the case, allowing the suit to continue.
VIDEO: Jeffrey Day struggles to walk in jail before getting a wheelchair
Rose wrote that the case can move forward in part because a former employee of NaphCare, an EMT named Jack Saunders, gave a deposition that NaphCare’s “policy” was to not send jail inmates to a hospital for care except in cases where the inmates life was clearly in danger or clearly suffered from broken bones.
Both the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office and NaphCare disputed that claim.
“NaphCare will send people out all day long depending on how the patient presents and their acuity,” a statement from the sheriff’s office said. “If they need a higher level of care no matter what, we don’t hesitate to send out.”
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NaphCare chief legal officer Brad Cain said the company sends incarcerated patients to hospitals if medically necessary care can’t be provided on site.
“In this pending litigation, the plaintiff has mischaracterized and misinterpreted our former employee’s deposition testimony, concluding that he testified to a ‘policy’ of NaphCare – which the Court unfortunately adopted,” Cain wrote in an email response to a question from this news organization.
One of Day’s attorneys, Douglas Brannon, said the deposition “just shows that the inmates are being denied necessary medical treatment,”
Families of two other former inmates — Sasha Garvin and Joseph Guglielmo — are among a group of others also suing the county, claiming they received inadequate medical care, among other claims.
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Saunders, in his deposition under oath, said Day reported his pain as a 10 out of 10 from hip pain and said he’d been in a motor vehicle accident. Saunders checked a box on Day’s intake forms indicating Day had limited mobility.
Saunders wrote that Day should get a lower bunk and put in a priority request for Day to be seen by a nurse practitioner or the jail physician at the time, Dr. Brenda Ellis. Saunders said paperwork shows Day also made another request for medical care.
Saunders said he did not see Day again in the jail, didn’t follow up on the sick call request and said it appeared that his employer, NaphCare, violated its own policy of seeing to inmates with serious medical requests within 24 hours.
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Saunders said he could not recall a time in his seven and a half years working at the jail that Ellis or a nurse practitioner — the only people authorized to refer an inmate to a hospital — checked on a patient during the overnight shift.
Asked if he expected Day to have been by higher-up medical professionals in Day’s five days in jail, Saunders said, “Yes” but more likely “the first day or so.”
Day required surgery after his release. Day’s trial is scheduled for July 8.
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