An Insulin-Dependent Diabetic Went Seven Days in the George County Jail Without Insulin While the Nurse Called It Meth Withdrawal. He Died. She Got 15 Years for Manslaughter; the County Paid $2.75 Million.
After trial: A settlement accepted by the estate on May 27, 2022 and certified as a judgment by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on May 31, 2022, so the figure is final by construction and no cap applied. Of the $2,750,000, the county pays $2,500,000 from its general fund and its insurer $250,000, with payment due in full by August 1, 2022; the county admits no fault and must write the family a letter of apology. The City of Lucedale was dismissed earlier. Collectability: the payer is a county under a court-certified schedule; WKRG reports the schedule rather than its completion, so the disclosure stays at not public. Attribution: WKRG identifies Garner Wetzel as co-counsel for the estate; the other co-counsel is not named in any source found.
Won by Wetzel Law Firm.
William Joel Dixon, 28, an insulin-dependent diabetic, was held in the George County Regional Correctional Facility in Lucedale in September 2014. For seven days he got no insulin. The jail nurse, Carmon Sue Brannan, dismissed his worsening condition as methamphetamine withdrawal. He died on September 24, 2014 of diabetic ketoacidosis. Brannan was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years. In June 2022 George County agreed to pay his estate, his mother and his children $2,750,000.
What happened
William Joel Dixon was 28 and an insulin-dependent diabetic. In September 2014 he was held at the George County Regional Correctional Facility in Lucedale, Mississippi.
For seven days he received no insulin. He asked for help repeatedly. The jail nurse, Carmon Sue Brannan, ignored him and blamed his symptoms on methamphetamine withdrawal. What he had was diabetic ketoacidosis, the condition that develops when a diabetic goes without insulin. He died on September 24, 2014.
The neglect was treated as a crime. Brannan was prosecuted for manslaughter, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years in prison for causing his death.
The civil case was filed on September 22, 2017 by his mother, Donna Dixon, on behalf of his estate and his two children, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi against George County, the City of Lucedale and Brannan. It alleged that Brannan called him a faker who was detoxing, that the jail refused him a doctor for seven days, and that nobody called emergency medical providers after he was found unconscious in the shower. The City of Lucedale was dismissed.
The estate at first rejected the county's attempt to settle, which would have sent the case to an August 2022 jury trial before Judge Sul Ozerden. On May 27, 2022 the county's lawyers told the Board of Supervisors the estate had accepted $2,750,000: $2,500,000 from the county, more than half of its $4,300,000 general fund, and $250,000 from its insurer, to be paid in full by August 1. The federal court certified the judgment on May 31. The county admits no fault, and the judgment requires it to write the Dixon family a letter of apology.
Garner Wetzel of the Wetzel Law Firm in Gulfport was co-counsel for the estate. "William Joel Dixon was taken from this Earth at no fault of his own entirely too early, leaving two adolescent children without a father," he told WKRG. "There's no judgement, there's no jury verdict, there's no way to bring back their father."
A nurse's criminal conviction for the same neglect is unusual corroboration for a civil result. Here it is on the record: the medical failure that the county paid for was one a jury had already found to be manslaughter.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.WKRG, June 2022: the George County Board of Supervisors' resolution accepting the $2.75 million judgment, $2.5 million from the county's $4.3 million general fund and $250,000 from its insurer, payable by August 1; the May 27 acceptance and May 31 federal certification; the no-fault clause and the letter of apology; Carmon Brannan's July 2018 manslaughter conviction and the denial of her appeal in June 2021; and Dixon estate co-counsel Garner Wetzel's statements
- 2.Associated Press via Action News 5, 23 June 2022: William Joel Dixon, 28, an insulin-dependent diabetic, held seven days without insulin at the George County Regional Correctional Facility in Lucedale and dead on September 24, 2014; nurse Carmon Sue Brannan's dismissal of his symptoms as methamphetamine withdrawal and her 15-year manslaughter sentence; the $2.75 million George County settlement; and the plaintiffs, his estate, mother and children
- 3.WLOX, 22 September 2017: Donna Dixon's wrongful-death suit against George County, the City of Lucedale and Carmon Sue Brannan; the September 17, 2014 arrest and disclosure of his diabetes at intake; and the allegations that he was called a faker, denied a doctor for seven days and found unconscious in the shower
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