Rachel Lang
A woman in the US will receive a huge payout after she lost her baby while she was spending time inn prison.
Sandra Quinones claimed jail staff ignored her calls for help and stopped for coffee on the way to the hospital while she was in labour.
The Orange County Board of Supervisors (OCBS) unanimously approved to settle the suit put forward by Quinones.
The now-34-year-old will be awarded $US480,000 (AUD$699,000, £410,500) in the wake of her tragic loss in 2016, according to the minutes of the OCBS meeting.
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She was six months pregnant and was in the middle of a 70-day sentence for possession of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance for sales when she went into labour.
When her water broke, Quinones pressed the call button repeatedly to alert her jailers to her dire situation, according to NBC.
It took them two hours to respond.
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When they did eventually answer her call for help, Quinones' lawyer Richard P. Herman claims the unnamed employees of the Santa Ana jail decided not to call an ambulance.
Instead, they transported her to hospital on a 'non-emergency basis', he said as per the New York Times.
While en route to the hospital, they left her secured in a van while they stopped for coffee at Starbucks.
So, as her jailers laboured over the decision to get lattes or frappuccinos, the then-28-year-old laboured too, bleeding and still in desperate need of help.
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The lawsuit did not reveal how long the coffee stop lasted.
When they finally arrived at the hospital, she was admitted into care, however the baby later died.
Herman, who filed the claim in court for his client in 2020, accused jail staffers of wrongful death and infliction of emotional distress in the death of her child by their actions.
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Quinones accused the unnamed Orange County Jail staffers of acting with 'deliberate indifference' to her medical crisis in the wrongful death suit, NBC reported.
She has since been homeless since the tragic incident, which stems from 'her inability to function and take care of her affairs after the incident as a result of the severe emotional harm in combination with her mental impairments', her lawyer said.
The case was initially dismissed in October 2020 as it fell beyond the two-year statute of limitations in California.
It was reinstated by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2021 after she joined another legal action against the council of Orange County.
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Quinones claimed the labour and loss of her child took place in March 2016.