King County will pay $1 million to a former jail inmate who fainted and fell while in custody, suffering a spinal injury that went untreated for days and left him with permanent nerve damage.
Bryan Telford alleged medical malpractice by county-jail staff while he was being held before trial at the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle when he fell in September 2016. Telford’s attorneys said he displayed immediately symptoms of a cervical spinal injury and immediately asked to be transported to Harborview Medical Center, but was not taken to the hospital for 10 days, according to court documents.
In that time, his injuries worsened and he now has permanent neurological damage, said his attorney, Craig Sandberg. Telford filed a medical-malpractice lawsuit against the county last year. The county will pay Telford $1 million, according to a settlement report provided by Sandberg.
The King County Prosecutor’s Office referred a request for comment to the county public-health department.
In a statement, Public Health — Seattle & King County, which oversees jail medical staff, confirmed the $1 million settlement but declined to comment on the specifics of Telford’s case, citing privacy concerns. The statement said jail staff work to “provide the highest quality care to people in custody.”
“Every health care system has unfortunate outcomes, and we strive to make them infrequent and rare in the jail,” the statement said. “We review cases and practices regularly, and continually improve how we provide care for this complex population of patients.”
