Hospital Keeps Sending Detainees Back Without Care to County Jail in Colorado
On August 16, 2023, detainee Daniel Foard, 32, died on the floor of his cell at the La Plata County Jail. Foard died from a perforated duodenal ulcer that, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by his family in 2025, was “highly treatable.” The lawsuit—which listed defendants including the Board of County Commissioners, local Sheriff Sean Smith, and the jail’s private medical contractor Southern Health Partners—also alleges that jail guards ignored Foard’s pleas for help and medical attention over a 15-hour period.
While Foard’s case is still in litigation, the complaint has prompted the La Plata County Jail to improve its protocols for sending detainees out for medical evaluations. As the Durango Herald reported, nurses at the jail have adopted a policy of “when in doubt, send them out” as a general practice. The hospital they are being sent to, however, has returned several detainees without receiving care, according to Smith.
In one instance, a detainee was taken to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital, the county’s primary hospital, only to be quickly discharged and sent back to the jail. Not long after, a guard returned the same detainee to the hospital, which “determined that he actually had internal bleeding and rushed him into lifesaving surgery,” the guard said.
Mercy Hospital, in a written statement to The Durango Herald, disputed the jail staff’s characterization of detainee care requests.
Source: The Durango Herald
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