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Damaris Rodriguez

  • Age: 43
  • Name of Jail: South Correctional Entity
  • Location: Des Moines, WA
  • Cause of Death*: Ketoacidosis and water intoxication
  • Incarceration Type: Pre-trial detention
  • Private Company: NaphCare
  • Incarceration Duration: About four days
  • Date of Death: January 4, 2018

Damaris Rodriguez, 43, was a mother of five who lived with her husband in SeaTac, WA. On December 30, 2017, Rodriguez, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder years prior, experienced a mental health crisis at her home, according to an investigation by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Public Integrity Team. Rodriguez’s husband called 911, specifically requesting medical assistance, but the police arrived before the paramedics and “incited a confrontation” that led to Rodriguez’s arrest, according to a lawsuit filed by her family. Rodriguez was taken to South Correctional Entity, where she “spent the next four days alone in a cell, naked, surrounded by her own urine and vomit, and fighting both mentally and physically against her own hallucinations,” the lawsuit alleged.

Corrections officers and medical staff “covered the window of her cell so they did not need to look at her, put towels in front of the door so her vomit would not leak into the hallway, and then ignored her,” the lawsuit alleged. “She did not eat. She barely slept.”

Rodriguez developed ketoacidosis, a treatable metabolic condition, and “water intoxication.” The lawsuit alleged that staff of the jail and Naphcare, the private company contracted to deliver healthcare in the jail, were “aware of the dangers of water intoxication” but “did not help her.” They allegedly moved her to a different cell without a sink and signed off on welfare checks that never occurred. Rodriguez was pronounced dead on January 4, 2018, four days into her incarceration.

“Although ketoacidosis and water intoxication were the physiological mechanisms that shut her body down,” the lawsuit alleged, “the root cause of Damaris’s death was a system that did not care about her.”

A spokesperson for NaphCare declined to comment on the specifics of Rodriguez’s case but stated, “We are confident in the quality of care provided to our patients and remain committed to providing the highest quality healthcare to every patient.”

South Correctional Entity did not respond to the Lab’s request for comment.

A full account of the lawsuit—including the estate’s allegations against Naphcare, South Correctional Entity and others, as well as each party’s response—is available through PACER (Case 2:19-cv-01987, Western District of Washington).