Attorney points fingers in jail death

An attorney for the family of a man with sickle cell anemia blamed his death at Sonoma County Jail on law enforcement and health professionals at Sutter Medical Center, where he was treated and discharged nearly a week before he died.

New York-based attorney Steven Wittels leveled the criticisms during a visit to Santa Rosa, where Ryan George lived and was memorialized at a funeral last week.

Wittels said "inadequate response by the Sheriff's Department and insufficient medical attention at Sutter . . . led to the downward spiral culminating in his unfortunate death."

George, 22, was found unresponsive July 9 in his cell in the medical housing unit of the jail, where he was serving a 10-month domestic violence sentence. Despite life-saving efforts by jail personnel, he was declared dead shortly after he was found.

George's family and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have said he would have survived had he been released into the care of Kaiser Permanente. Wittels said George was treated at Kaiser multiple times since 2004 for sickle cell crises.

Echoing his prior statements, Sheriff Bill Cogbill said it is premature to assign fault when Marin County sheriff's deputies have just begun their investigation of what occurred before, during and after George's hospitalization.

"Marin County is interviewing all those people and they're getting detailed information . . . speaking to Sutter, Kaiser and our jail medical staff," he said. "I don't have all those answers. For somebody to say they do, I'd like to know what crystal ball they have."

A spokesman at Sutter, which has a contract to care for Sonoma County inmates who need hospitalization, said the hospital would cooperate fully with the investigation.

"Our condolences go out to the family," hospital spokesman Shaun Ralston said.

Neither the Sutter doctor who admitted George on July 1 nor the doctor who discharged him on July 3 were available Saturday for comment.

Lower back pain prompted George to complain to jail staff on June 29, Wittels said.

He said the symptom was consistent with earlier sickle cell crises and questioned why George didn't receive earlier intervention from doctors familiar with his condition.

A jail physician had conferred with a Kaiser doctor by phone before George died, and the two planned to meet the week he died, Cogbill said previously.

"If in fact that conversation occurred, it was way too little and way too late," Wittels said. "In the early stages of an attack, of a flare-up . . . the intervention has to be timely."

Out of medical necessity, inmates have been transferred to other hospitals for specialty care, sheriff's officials said, but Cogbill said he and his deputies don't initiate that process.

"Usually, if it's beyond Sutter's capabilities and they feel it's necessary to refer them somewhere else, they make that decision and we facilitate it," Cogbill said.

In George's case, he said, "as far as I know, they never did make that referral or request."

Sickle cell anemia is a genetic disorder in which the body produces abnormal red blood cells, cells that are crescent- or sickle-shaped. Those cells can get stuck in blood vessels, blocking normal flow, and resulting in pain and organ damage.

Preliminary autopsy results released by the Sonoma County coroner said George had micro-clotting in the lungs and possible acute chest syndrome, conditions consistent with sickle cell anemia. A final report is pending.

At the family's request, a second autopsy was performed by a privately hired pathologist on July 13, Wittels said.

Asked if the preliminary findings were consistent with the first autopsy, Wittels said he had received no results in writing.

News Researcher Vonnie Matthews contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Katy Hillenmeyer at 521-5274 or katy.hillenmeyer

@pressdemocrat.com.