Society's Child

Florida woman dies outside hospital after being arrested, forcibly removed by police from her room

Nicolas Roberts
Opposing Views
Sun, 10 Jan 2016 01:28 UTC

A Florida woman who was arrested for refusing to leave an emergency room of a local hospital collapsed and died in the hospital's parking lot later that day. Medical staff called police on her because they reportedly thought she was feigning her illness.

Barbara Dawson, 57, went to the Calhoun Liberty Hospital in Blountstown, Florida, on Dec. 20, 2015, to get treatment for her abdominal pain, ABC reports. She died in the early hours of Dec. 21, 2015.

Hospital officials said that Dawson was being unruly and refused to leave the hospital after medical staff examined and released her. A police officer was called to the hospital, and he arrested Dawson for disorderly conduct and trespassing.

Lawyers representing Dawson's family have released a police dash-cam video of the incident. Martha Smith-Dixon, Dawson's aunt, said in a news conference on Jan. 6 that she hopes the footage will bring "justice for Barbara," according to ABC.

Dawson is not visible in most of the dash-cam video but can reportedly be heard saying "Oh my God" and "I can't breathe" multiple times."You hear them insisting that she is going to jail," Benjamin Crump, the Dawson family lawyer, said about the video, Reuters reports. "You also hear hospital personnel repeating to her, 'There's nothing wrong with you,' as she continues to be in distress."

According to Crump, the video shows that the officer did not believe Dawson was in any medical trouble either. The cause of her death was a blood clot on the lung." You hear him saying to the captain, 'I thought she was just being non-compliant,'" Daryl Parks, another lawyer representing the family, said. "We now know that that assumption cost Barbara Dawson her life."

Dawson collapsed before entering the officer's vehicle and was eventually brought back inside the hospital. Parks noted that there is a 20-minute gap between when Dawson could no longer be heard on the dash-cam recording and when medical staff arrived, according to ABC.

A police report received by an ABC affiliate said that the officer believed "Dawson was ... making herself dead weight in an effort to avoid going to jail."Crump went on to emphasize what he called the larger implication in Dawson's death, noting that police and hospital staff treated her "like she was not worthy of consideration."

No lawsuits have yet been filed in the case, although the Blountstown Police Department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration have all launched separate independent investigations.

Sources: Reuters, ABC News

Comment: How utterly horrifying for this woman and her family. We hope the family sues and get millions. It's heinous that the police are now killing weak, infirm citizens in entirely new ways.

Reader Comments

Baybars · 2016-01-12T02:24:14Z

Race

Holy smokes I am glad I don't live in the U.S.!!!!

zek · 2016-01-12T03:51:44Z

compensation

There can be no compensation for such a thing. It's not within the power of any human to make such compensation. This would not have happened if hospitals were run by people who care and want to heal people. That they are not should by now be clear to anyone with any sense.

I suppose, though, in a way it's appropriate that the taxpayers should be slammed for a few million, as it's ultimately their fault for not standing up and for constantly voting for psychopaths to rule them. Only insane people want to rule others, and of them, only psychopaths can convince others to let them.

Nope · 2016-01-12T03:54:32Z

White southern racists have infiltrated too many important areas of american life and business; medicine, law enforcement, judiciary, education, etc. this is why things like this happen. They need to be rooted out for the safety of the rest of us. We let this happen and we need to do something about it. There is no excuse for this and no other explanation. I hope those lawyers rip that hospital and the PD a new one for millions. Enough is enough already!

B_Pilgrim · 2016-01-12T16:37:05Z

White southern racists? Are you really so ignorant to believe that racists only exist in the south and in the form of white people? How easy life must be when you can lump people into easily identifiable groups and not worry yourself about all the obvious exceptions. Once you demonize a group of people in order to make yourself feel morally superior, whether it be 'white southern racists' or muslims, you're playing right into the PTB strategy of divide and conquer.

Nope · 2016-01-12T17:22:54Z

Pilgrim, I didnt say they were only in the south. They are everywhere now, they migrated. They are from the south. Its not the region its the laundry room culture: separate the colors from the whites. Southern racist whites have done the most damage, caused the most death. The other bigots out there just make life unpleasant but srws cause unemployment, miseducation, lead in drinking water, riots, mass shootings and death. All because they cant handle the idea of a brown person living a better life than them. If they are ready to let all of this go and start treating everyone around them with respect and let them live in peace maybe we can all move forward and fight our real enemies. But until then they need to go!

B_Pilgrim · 2016-01-12T17:37:48Z

Sorry Nope but racism didn't start in 1861 or in America for that matter. Nor has it since then, been isolated in the south. Their were plenty of people from and living in the north that didn't want slavery abolished anymore than they wanted freed black men and women as their neighbors. Let's not forget that the Civil War wasn't started to end slavery, it was started to maintain the integrity of the Union. Whether or not that reasoning is Constitutionally sound is another debate entirely but, the fact stands that Abraham Lincoln only abolished slavery in the Union when it became apparent that was his best chance in maintaining it. Racism is as old as race itself. It's too easy to focus on the most recent and familiar example of it while ignoring the fact that it has been a part of every society since the beginning. One small example, racism against Native Americans has been a staple of American exceptionalism from the time of the first colonies, long before there were states and long before there was a north and south.

Nope · 2016-01-15T10:25:39Z

Pilgrim, you're conflating two issues here. This usually happens when someone feels ashamed of something (maybe you are a southern white person) and doesn't want to deal with a an embarrassing issue head on. You are conflating bigotry with savage racism. There's a big difference between someone not wanting a brown person for a neighbor and hanging them from trees because you don't want them to surpass you culturally, intellectually, financially, physically, etc. it's also important to remember that what happened in the past is supposed to be a reminder of what Not to do. This lady died last month because of the callous way we treat black people in this country. Swrs are still behaving this way even today. They should be enlightened but they aren't, thats what's wrong here. This has nothing to do with Lincoln or slavery. A 17 yr old kid was hanged last year in MS for dating a white woman, thats what Im talking about. In Vermont they may have just gossiped. Get the point? Swrs cross the line by affecting people's "health."
And for the record I has never had a problem with Muslims, I don't think you can compare swrs to someone who is simply Muslim.

Straight Talk · 2016-01-12T05:02:43Z

Health Care???

"Hippocratic Oath be damned. If I don't think I'll be paid you're out of here!", this seems to be the message from these "health care professionals" This is the best health care system in the world?!?!? Remember when Obama wanted a single payer healthcare system like the rest of the civilized world? God forbid we should mess with the blindingly high profits of the insurance companies and Big Pharma! And the cops..."to serve and protect" is a laughable slogan to the black community and to poor whites...yes cops have been behind custodial and confrontational deaths of whites also - some just as outrageous as the highly publicized black deaths over the past year. I think people should reach out to each other and change the BLM name to "All Lives Matter". Until we form a united front against the moneyed dictatorship that has formed over the past 35 years, it is only going to get worse. I agree, "enough is enough already."

Juggernaut · 2016-01-12T10:52:01Z

Q.

Exactly what is a "Booay"?

Unicorn America · 2016-01-12T11:40:51Z

Totalitarianism

In a civilized society, the cop should have demanded that the hospital give her a second evaluation. But what do you expect from 330,000,000 chimpanzees and neanderthals?

Anyone who by now cannot see that the U.S.A. is now officially a totalitarian country is lost FOREVER. There is no turning back. You have reached the event horizon. If some people are not awaken already, there will not be another chance for them to later. Your goose is cooked forever.

treedirt · 2016-01-12T12:02:05Z

Hate to be cynical in the face of this poor woman's death but I'm not sure what people are expecting from this current in play system in the US. Are people still holding on to the silly notion that anything at all in place is to help the average poor citizen? Or is it to slowly flush the poor down the drain? They say the it's the former and once in a while you get a heart warming story for them to point at and say "see it works". But the later is what is witnessed more and more now.

Just how much medical knowledge do you think that barely passed by the skin of their teeth, College America nursing school graduate has? They probably genuinely thought she was ok and needed to go sleep it off. I'm sure they think they are Doogie Houser MD with a side of Scrubs for the trendy laughs but unfortunately that doesn't cut it in the real world and this women now knows why.

We already know cops have turned into rabid dogs so yeah ... -_-

So many people in society are just helium balloons floating through the motions for a paycheck and a mcsamich. To each their own and all that but it sure sucks when you need them to actually do their job, especially if it is important, like medical staff or upholding the laws. Food service would be better and the CSR's and cooks would do a better job, IF the manager was doing theirs and up the ladder it goes.

Like Rome we too are falling and mostly due to moral decay but you know YOLO and stuff -_-.

beherenow · 2016-01-12T13:45:20Z

the shape of things to come..

...since EVERYONE will have to have "affordable" care. If one does not, you can just sit outside the ER and DIE, right?...after all you were given every opportunity possible to "sign up", so its your own dumb fault that you can't be "afford-ably"cared for.

But of course, the "nice people", with their insurance cards, won't want to see that kind of thing and will call in the oh so compassionate goon squad to keep the ER entrances "clean".

signed, Chimp Neanderthal

PS @ unicorn America....since ALL 330,000,000 of us who live here are SO unaware, please, please, enlighten us on how un-free we really are...and if you can, try to explain it as simply as possible, due to our atrophied little chimp brains.

Morpheous · 2016-01-12T21:59:05Z

It's just sad

My condolences to her family. Unfortunately this is what we are today. The fall will be ugly if this any indication of what is in store for all of us.

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They hate people have an alternative information source they have no control of.

agni

Society's Child

Florida woman dies outside hospital after being arrested, forcibly removed by police from her room

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