$1.5 Million Settlement After Woman Dies of Overdose During Jail Intake, Ignored by Nursing Staff
Salt Lake County paid $1.5 million to the mother of a 25-year-old woman who died of methamphetamine toxicity at the county jail after nursing staff dismissed her overdose symptoms as a panic attack and left her unmonitored in a prone position.
What happened
On June 17, 2019, Utah Highway Patrol stopped Breanna Jimenez, then 25, for a broken taillight. Officers found nine outstanding warrants and transported her to Salt Lake County Jail. During booking, a deputy observed Jimenez place a blue object in her mouth and swallow it. The intake notes documented that she may have ingested something, but no medical intervention followed.
Over the next hour, jail nursing staff watched Jimenez show signs of acute distress. Rather than treating her for a possible drug ingestion, nurses concluded she was having a panic attack. She was placed face-down in a padded cell, a position medical professionals recognize as dangerous for someone who may have overdosed. Nurse Joel Smith pricked her purple finger to check blood sugar, then walked out without escalating her care. Staff records later showed he backdated vital sign entries to the night of her death, entering them the following morning with no notation of the delay.
Jimenez stopped moving at 10:33 p.m. No one checked her pulse until 10:47 p.m. Nurses rolled her over and began CPR at 10:49 p.m., and paramedics arrived at 10:59 p.m. She was pronounced dead at 11:31 p.m. The Salt Lake County medical examiner ruled the cause of death acute methamphetamine toxicity and the manner accidental.
All three nurses involved eventually left their jobs at the jail, two of them within months of Jimenez's death. All three remained licensed in Utah.
Jimenez's mother, Brandy Tibbetts, retained Parker and McConkie Personal Injury Lawyers and filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Salt Lake County. The firm argued that jail personnel showed deliberate indifference to Jimenez's deteriorating condition, violating her constitutional right to medical care for a severe and visible medical emergency. A certified forensic nurse reviewed the records and characterized the death as preventable, citing serious violations of nursing standards of care.
Nearly four years after Jimenez's death, Salt Lake County agreed to pay $1.5 million from its risk management fund to settle all claims. The county admitted no liability or wrongdoing. The settlement money went to Tibbetts as the surviving parent.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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