Anger as homeless woman, 29, dies in police cell after being arrested for refusing to leave hospital
- Anna Brown visited three hospitals complaining of leg pain in days leading to death
- She was handcuffed on ward and taken to station
- Died after blood clots moved from her legs to lungs
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'Judged': Anna Brown, 29, complained of leg pains, which were later found to have been caused by blood clots that led to her death
A homeless woman who refused to leave hospital without treatment for her sprained ankle was arrested and then died on the floor of a police cell.
Anna Brown, 29, visited three hospitals in St Louis, Missouri, complaining of leg pain, which was later found to have been caused by the blood clots that killed her.
She was arrested at St Mary's Health Center for trespassing and wheeled out of the emergency room in handcuffs after a doctor said she was healthy enough to be locked up.
Police accused her of having taken drugs and dragged her by the arms into the station, where they laid her on the floor of a jail cell.
The clots later migrated to her lungs and killed her, according to an autopsy reported on in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She had no drugs in her system.
Miss Brown's family said she had died because people 'passed judgment' and have hired a lawyer, Keith Link - who has not responded to messages seeking comment.
St Mary's said in a statement yesterday that its staff followed medical guidelines and performed appropriate tests.
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Share'Unfortunately, even with appropriate testing using sophisticated technology, blood clots can still be undetected in a small number of cases,' said the hospital, which acknowledged the 'outrage being expressed about this tragic event.'
A spokeswoman declined an interview request, citing patient privacy laws.
Miss Brown told the arresting officers she could not get out of the car because she could not put pressure on her legs, so they dragged her into the station, according to surveillance tapes.
Their report listed her physical state as 'suspected drug use' and noted that she had 'unknown leg pain'.
Detained: Miss Brown was wheeled out of St Mary's Health Center in handcuffs after a doctor said she was healthy enough to be arrested
Her condition worsened at the station, and officers carried her by the arms and legs into a prison cell, laid her on her back on the floor and left. Fifteen minutes later, a jail worker found her cold to the touch.
Miss Brown's north St Louis home was destroyed in a tornado on New Year's Eve 2010, triggering a chain of unhappy events.
She and her two children moved to Berkeley, a St Louis suburb, and she lost her job at a sandwich shop soon afterwards.
Her utilities were shut off because she stopped paying her bills, and a child welfare agent who visited the home in April found a faeces-filled toilet and burn marks on the floor where she had lit fires to keep warm.
Miss Brown was arrested for parental neglect and police reported that she was not lucid and seemed confused.
Her mother, Dorothy Davis, got custody of Miss Brown's children on the condition that Miss Brown did not also live with them, and the 29-year-old's home was condemned.
She lived in homeless shelters from May until September.
Ms Davis, who said Miss Brown called every day to check on her children, said she wants answers about her daughter's death.
'If the police killed my daughter, I want to know. If the hospital is at fault, I want to know. I want to be able to tell her children why their mother isn't here,' said Ms Davis.
- DOROTHY DAVIS,
MISS BROWN'S MOTHER
Acting Police Chief Maj. Roy Wright said his officers had no way of knowing about Miss Brown's fatal condition.
'A lot of times people don't want to stay in jail and will claim to be sick,' he said. 'We depend on medical officials to tell us they're OK.'
State inspectors working for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - a federal agency that regulates hospitals - interviewed St Mary's staff and reviewed medical records after the Post-Dispatch asked about Miss Brown's case.
They found that when the homeless woman arrived at St Mary's around 11.45am on September 20, her left ankle was swollen. She was there for about seven hours, during which time ultrasounds on both of her legs were negative for blood clots.
Inspectors said she returned eight hours later and was discharged at 7am. Three hours later, she was still there and refusing to leave.
After obtaining a 'Fit for Confinement' report from a doctor at 12.30pm, officers took her to jail.
'My sister is not here today because people passed judgment,' said one of her nine siblings, Krystle Brown.
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