A national civil-rights organization is joining the legal team of a Mexican citizen suing the Park County sheriff over losing a lung and part of a leg due to conditions he developed while in the county jail in 2003.
Moises Carranza-Reyes claims that he developed a streptococcus infection while incarcerated at the Park County jail for a week in March 2003, said Adele Kimmel of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.
The Washington-based lawyers group announced Wednesday that it’s becoming part of the team, which includes local attorneys, representing Carranza- Reyes in a lawsuit filed in Denver U.S. District Court on Feb. 28.
Carranza-Reyes’ suit contends that the infection was due to filthy conditions at the jail and the inadequate medical attention he received while there. The infection ultimately resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee and the removal of part of a lung, Kimmel said.
The Mexican citizen was held in the Park County jail from March 1 to March 8 in 2003, on behalf of federal immigration officials for an immigration violation.
Carranza-Reyes wasn’t charged with any crime, she said.
During that time, he alleges he was kept in filthy, crowded conditions in a cellblock with 40 beds housing 60 inmates, Kimmel said. Carranza-Reyes says he slept between two inmates who couldn’t get out of bed to feed themselves and that he had to attend to them, she added.
“Within one week of being detained in this jail – (in a) filthy, overcrowded, poorly heated cellblock – he got an infection that blackened both of his legs with gangrene, causing him to lose part of one leg and part of one lung, and nearly cost him his life,” Kimmel said.
Carranza-Reyes was rushed to Denver Health Medical Center, and “even though he could hardly walk and was urinating blood and vomiting blood, they still required him to be handcuffed. And even handcuffed him in the hospital. That was the sheriff’s orders, to handcuff him in the hospital,” Kimmel said.
“He was in cardiac and respiratory arrest. He had pneumonia, sepsis. It was unbelievably inhumane treatment. … He was in a coma for awhile. He was in (the hospital) for two months.”
She said the lawsuit accuses the sheriff, the jail’s captain and the jail’s medical staff of violating Carranza-Reyes’ right to sanitary housing and adequate medical care, and accused the medical staff of negligence and malpractice.
Attempts to reach Sheriff Fred Wegener for comment were unsuccessful.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
