The mother of a woman who died of a fentanyl overdose while at the Franklin County jail has sued the company providing medical care, alleging it didn’t perform required safety checks that might have saved her daughter’s life.
Instead, the lawsuit alleges nurses orchestrated a cover-up to make it look like the checks were done, along with an effort to shred records showing they weren’t.
The lawsuit, filed in March in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, says Armor Health of Ohio LLC and several nurses who were working an overnight shift at the Franklin County jail did not check on 33-year-old Gierra Perdue.
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On March 9, 2023, police arrested Perdue and took her to the jail facility on Jackson Pike. The 33-year-old was detoxing from drug use that happened before her arrest, according to the lawsuit.
About a week later, on March 16 and 17, Perdue was on a safety watch status, which required checks every eight to 10 minutes, the lawsuit says. Medical personnel conducted those checks.
Franklin County contracts with Armor Health of Ohio to provide medical care in jail facilities. In 2021, County Commissioners approved the first contract, worth nearly $65 million.
In October 2024, the commissioners extended the original three-year contract by one year. According to the extension, the contract is set to expire in October.
The lawsuit alleges two nurses working an overnight shift checked on Perdue shortly after 9 p.m. but did not check on her at the required intervals after that. Perdue was found dead in her cell shortly after 2 a.m. March 17, 2023.
Perdue’s family alleges in the lawsuit that one of the nurses conducted three safety checks throughout the course of the overnight shift but documented 42 checks on a safety log. The lawsuit alleges a log the nurses created contained prefilled checks set for after Perdue was found dead.
After Perdue was found, the lawsuit alleges, the nurses created a new log and filled it out with the times they had prefilled on the first log before putting it in a bin for medical records to be shredded.
The lawsuit alleges one of the nurses told an investigator “ignorance and laziness” are what prompted the nurses to ignore safety checks.
“Ms. Perdue would have been in clear distress, and it would have been obvious to the Defendants that she needed immediate, emergency medical attention on the few times they did encounter Ms. Perdue or … had performed the safety checks all of the times they falsely charted that they did,” the lawsuit says. “But for Defendants’ neglect, Ms. Perdue would not have died.”
The lawsuit does not name Franklin County or the Franklin County Sheriff’s office as defendants.
Armor Health had not responded to the lawsuit as of May 16. A request for comment from an attorney representing the company was not answered.
(This story was updated to meet our standards.)
Reporter Bethany Bruner can be reached at bbruner@gannett.com or on Bluesky at @bethanybruner.dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Lawsuit on Franklin County jail overdose alleges coverup over ‘ignorance and laziness’
Reporting by Bethany Bruner, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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