SAN DIEGO — The family of a 24-year-old pregnant woman who died in jail five years ago sued San Diego County and will get almost $15 million to settle the case. The deputy sheriff and a medical worker saw her fall in her cell and then did nothing.
The deal was reached late Friday night after the county and Elisa Serna’s family had been in talks for a long time. The case was only a few weeks away from going to trial. The judge in charge of the federal case agreed to the deal, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Tuesday.
Paloma Serna, Elisa’s mother, said, “The amount of money doesn’t matter.” She plans to keep fighting for other men and women in sheriff’s care. “These things won’t change the fact that Elisa is leaving for good.”
The newspaper said that San Diego County will pay $14 million and the Coast Correctional Medical Group, which sends doctors to jails to treat people, will pay $1 million.
This year, the jail nurse who came to Serna’s aid when she collapsed was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter in his death in November 2019 at the Las Colinas Detention Facility in Santee, a neighborhood of San Diego.
With five weeks to go, Serna was put into jail five days before she died. Police say she told the jail staff that she had used heroin hours before she was arrested because she was going through withdrawals from drugs and alcohol.
For about an hour after Serna passed out, the nurse didn’t check her vital signs and instead left her on the floor of her cell, prosecutors said. She then came back with deputies to start “futile lifesaving measures.”
The medical examiner said she died because of problems caused by long-term “polysubstance abuse.”
Along with the $15 million payment, the agreement says that the sheriff’s office must give officers and jail medical staff new training.
The judge can also keep an eye on the sheriff’s department for the next year to make sure it follows through on its promise, according to the Union-Tribune.
After the deal, Sheriff Kelly Martinez said in a statement that she wasn’t in charge when Serna died but that she has made a lot of changes since she was sworn in last year.
She wrote, “Since 2019, there have been a lot of changes and a huge shift in priorities, approach, and processes in our jails.” “As sheriff, I’m dedicated to making our jail system better and making sure the jails are safe for everyone who is locked up and for our staff.”
Source: AP
