Elisa Serna was seriously ill when she was booked in jail November 2019. She vomited for days, repeatedly fell, lost consciousness and had several seizures — but her symptoms went ignored, according to a newly settled lawsuit over her death. Serna, a 24-year-old mother who was pregnant, never received the medical care she needed at Las Colinas Detention Facility in San Diego County — and was left to die following her last seizure and final fall, the lawsuit says. Serna was “dying of dehydration” by the time a sheriff’s deputy and nurse witnessed the seizure and saw her hit her head and fall to the floor, becoming unconscious in her cell, according to the lawsuit.
The outcome of the civil case is the largest wrongful death settlement involving the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, according to Eugene Iredale, one of Elisa Serna’s family’s attorneys. The settlement “requires specific policy, training and practice changes in the Jail’s treatment of patients withdrawing from alcohol or drugs,” Iredale said in a news release.
In 2019, Elisa Serna was detained in connection with shoplifting alcohol at a grocery store, Julia Yoo, another attorney representing the case, told McClatchy News on July 2. When she arrived at jail on Nov. 6, 2019, she had pneumonia and “reported that she suffered from an addiction to heroin and alcohol,” according to the lawsuit. Jail staff were aware she was “going through withdrawal,” but didn’t give Elisa Serna medication to help her symptoms until four days later, the lawsuit says. Read more here.