Alone in a cell at the Denver County Jail, Diana Sanchez gave birth on a cot over an absorbent pad, mere feet from a toilet, even though jail staff knew she was in labor.
Footage of the hours-long labor, which took place on July 31, 2018, was captured on a video feed of her cell, and clips were obtained by HuffPost.
During labor, Sanchez appeared to cry out and shake in pain as she rushed to remove her pants and underwear, eventually giving birth to a boy as a deputy watched from the doorway.
More than one year later, Sanchez, now 27, is filing a federal lawsuit against Denver County for a day of unnecessary terror, pain and humiliation that continues to cause her ongoing emotional trauma.
In an interview one month after giving birth, Sanchez told Fox 31 Denver that the pain she experienced that morning was indescribable.
What hurts me more, though, is that fact that nobody cared, she told the news station at the time.
Her attorney, Mari Newman, said jail staffers violated Sanchezs constitutional right to adequate medical care, which, according to the American Civil Liberties Union , is protected by the Eighth Amendment.
As a detainee in the jail, Ms. Sanchez had no ability do anything to obtain medical care other than alert jail staff that she was in labor, Newman told HuffPost. There is a constitutional obligation for jailers to provide medical care to detainees and inmates for this very reason: They have no ability to obtain medical care for themselves.
The suit was filed in a U.S. District Court in Denver on Wednesday. The city of Denver, the Denver Health and Hospital Authority and six individuals are listed as defendants in the lawsuit.
An edited video shows footage recorded in the five hours that Sanchez was in labor, starting with her telling staff she is having contractions up to Sanchez giving birth.
Newman said that county officials censored a portion of the video that shows the toilet in Sanchezs cell.
The only conclusion I can draw is that Denver somehow thinks that by hiding the open toilet, viewers wont be as appalled by their abject indifference forcing Diana to give birth in a dirty cell without any medical care, Newman told HuffPost.
The lawsuit claims that the jail staff took a wait and see approach to Sanchezs labor, as though it were not patently obvious to anyone ... that Ms. Sanchez was in labor and required immediate medical attention.
The lawsuit also claims that staff failed to provide care to Sanchez based on automatic assumptions that inmates are lying about, faking, or exaggerating their symptoms.
When Sanchez was booked at the Denver County Jail on July 14, 2018, she notified staff that she was more than eight months pregnant and that her due date was Aug. 9, 2018, according to the lawsuit.
On the morning of the birth, Sanchez labored alone for four to five hours. As seen in the video, a jail staffer slid an absorbent pad underneath Sanchezs cell door 41 minutes before the baby was born. The baby can be seen sliding onto the pad as a man in medical gloves stands at the door.
Staff was able to watch the entire labor process via a video feed from Ms. Sanchez cell, yet no medical care was provided, according to the suit.
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