DALLAS, Texas — A former detainee at the Dallas County jail has filed suit against Dallas County and Parkland Health, the hospital system that provides medical care inside the jail, saying a staph infection he picked up behind bars was ignored until it left him unable to walk.
The 50-year-old man says a cellmate was sick with staph during his time in custody, and that within days he felt ill and had trouble moving his legs. His complaint says his calls for medical help went unanswered as he got worse, that officers dropped him while carrying him out of his cell and that medical staff first examined him and then put him back in the cell even though he could not stand.
He was taken out of the jail on a stretcher on Sept. 17, 2024. At a hospital, doctors found a spinal epidural abscess infected with staph and operated on an emergency basis, followed by a second surgery to remove dead tissue. By then, the lawsuit says, the damage to his spinal cord was permanent, and he has no movement below his waist.
Blerim Elmazi, the lawyer representing him, contends the county and its medical contractor let an obvious emergency go on for days before giving him the care he needed. The suit also challenges cleanliness and infection control in the jail. It has not been established where the man contracted the infection or whether faster treatment would have changed the outcome.
The man had been jailed in December 2023 on a charge that court records show was later dismissed.
It is not the first staph claim against the jail. Former prisoner Mark Duvall contracted MRSA there and lost sight in one eye, and jurors in federal court ruled the county had shown deliberate indifference to his health and awarded him $355,000. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that verdict, and evidence in the case put the jail’s MRSA infection rate near 20% in 2003, far above the 1% to 2% seen at comparable jails.
Section: More Dallas TX crime news
Filed under: Dallas TX Public Safety News
