A pregnant Colorado mother in jail for failing to appear in court after a traffic violation told a civil rights nonprofit she nearly died when prison guards didn’t believe she was in intense pain, and her baby died. Tuesday Olson was about one month pregnant when she was booked into the La Plata County Jail in 2013, she told the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado in video released Tuesday. Officials were made aware of her pregnancy and that she was advised to see a doctor as soon as possible, according to a court order the nonprofit obtained. "They knew that I was pregnant,” Olson said of guards at La Plata’s jail. “They were telling me that I was lying. They told me that I couldn't get prenatal pills, and I wasn't able to go to an OBGYN at that time.”
More than 1,000 pregnant women have spent time in Colorado jails between July 2018 and July 2019, ACLU attorney Lizzy Hinkley told The Denver Post. Diana Sanchez, one of those women, gave birth alone in a cell in Denver County Jail in July 2018, and another woman had her baby in a toilet at the El Paso County Jail in 2017, the newspaper reported. The ACLU of Colorado is investigating jail policies and practices regarding women’s reproductive care in Colorado jails, and advocates are asking women to share their stories.
Olson said in an interview with the ACLU of Colorado that despite jailers minimizing her symptoms, she kept telling them something was wrong. “I started having cramps, and I started bleeding,” she said. Jail progress notes indicate that Olson told guards, "I think I'm pregnant + I'm having a miscarriage." She said she needed to see a nurse but was told to go lay down.
Olson said guards eventually took her to a medical observation room at La Plata’s jail to do a “pad count.” "The explanation of a pad count is they wanted to see how many pads I filled up within an hour of blood bleeding vaginally during pregnancy instead of taking me to the hospital," she told the ACLU. “I literally could not even walk and they threw a mat on the floor and left me in there and threw me two pads. I was in there for three days.”
She said she sat, prayed, and begged for guards to take her to the hospital. “Medically I ended up having a blood infection from my pelvis to my breasts," Olson said. "I ended up losing consciousness.” She said she woke up in the back of an ambulance handcuffed to a gurney, and she had a Cesarean section when she made it to the hospital. “But they took me back to the jail immediately after the c-section had happened,” Olson said, “and I started hurting again.” She asked to go to the hospital but her request wasn’t met until she threatened a civil lawsuit. "They found out that I had a ruptured fallopian tube. I had been bleeding for days at this time," she said.
Olson discovered she had an ectopic pregnancy, a medical condition in which a fertilized egg is located outside of the uterus. “At that time, I had had complete organ failure," she said. "I lost a fallopian tube. I lost an ovary. I had kidney failure. I ended up losing half of my women's organ. I lost a baby.” She was placed in solitary and offered no counseling, Olson said.
She said at this point, she doesn't even know what accountability for jail staffers would look like. "I was being held accountable for not appearing in court and I ended up losing my child and my organs," she said. "Do they have to go to therapy for the rest of their life or counseling for losing their kid over a traffic violation? No."
Although it’s too late for Olson to file a civil suit, she told the ACLU she hopes her story ends up getting women who are incarcerated better reproductive health care. "Whether they're there on a murder charge or there on a traffic violation, nobody deserves to go through what I went through," she said. "It's not right. It's not human."