Background: The Jefferson County Sheriff”s Department building in Golden, Colo. (Google Maps). Inset: Ashley Raisbeck (photo from lawsuit).
The family of a Colorado woman who died while in jail has filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming that medical staff at the jail where she was held ignored a fatal allergic reaction.
Ashley Raisbeck, 27, was serving a brief jail sentence after taking a plea agreement in December 2023 while she was coming off of drugs. According to the lawsuit, which was reviewed by Law&Crime, medical staff at the Jefferson County Detention Center in Golden, Colorado, began treating Raisbeck for withdrawal and noticed sores on various parts of her body. Part of the treatment plan included antibiotics, but Raisbeck told medical staff that she was allergic to penicillin, which was noted in their records.
Despite that, the lawsuit claimed, medical staff administered a synthetic form of the exact drug she said she was allergic to.
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The lawsuit names several Jefferson County officials, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, and 11 medical staffers as defendants responsible for Raisbeck’s death on Dec. 16, 2023. Raisbeck was arrested three days prior and booked into the Jefferson County Jail after pleading guilty to false reporting. Because Raisbeck was an active drug addict, medical staff put her on a detox protocol.
According to the lawsuit, Raisbeck had been in and out of jail for minor offenses, and she had indicated her allergy to penicillin, Vicodin, and codeine in the past. When she was first booked into jail and seen by a nurse during her medical intake, the nurse saw sores on her face, arms, and legs. In addition to the detox protocol, another nurse prescribed cephalexin, brand name Keflex, a synthetic version of penicillin that is contraindicated in patients with a penicillin allergy.
Raisbeck had refused to take Keflex during a previous stint in jail due to her allergy, which was noted in her medical records. She took a different antibiotic instead.
The lawsuit stated that according to medical records from her December 2023 visit, Raisbeck was given Keflex seven times while she was in custody. She began having increasingly severe gastrointestinal reactions and dropping blood pressure, a symptom that does not normally occur during withdrawal and is considered a “red flag” that requires further medical treatment. According to the lawsuit, the nurse who noticed this symptom “failed to notify anyone.”
Similarly, Raisbeck experienced a pulse rate higher than 120, another red flag that was allegedly ignored. As her symptoms worsened, nurses still did not seek further medical attention. By the time Raisbeck had her sixth dose of Keflex, she started experiencing muscle cramps and spasms, both symptoms of shock. A nurse told her to “drink water” despite her inability to keep anything down.
On the morning of Dec. 16, 2023, a nurse and a sheriff’s deputy went to Raisbeck’s cell and found her “lethargic and unresponsive.” The nurse could not find a pulse, and her blood pressure was at a level “known to be incompatible with life.” Both the nurse and deputy left Raisbeck in her cell alone for another hour while she was in the “final stages of anaphylactic shock.” The nurse returned and gave Raisbeck a seventh dose of Keflex.
The lawsuit said that this was when the nurse and deputy loaded Raisbeck into a wheelchair, where she lost consciousness. The deputy noted that Raisbeck’s “head had to be held up,” her feet dragged along the floor, and she had a “blank, glazed stare.” The same nurse then gave Raisbeck two doses of Narcan “despite no clinical indication or symptoms of opioid overdose.”
When Raisbeck arrived at the jail medical unit, medical staff administered three more doses of Narcan, still treating her as if she was “overdosing.” When another member of the staff called 911, the lawsuit said she told dispatchers it was “probably a fentanyl overdose,” adding with a chuckle, “We get a lot of those here.”
Paramedics arrived at the jail at 11:34 a.m. Raisbeck was pronounced dead at the hospital at 12:07 p.m. An autopsy cited severe dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, shock, black vomit, and “no evidence of a fentanyl overdose.” The cause of death was complications of intussusception.
Anita Springsteen, a civil rights attorney who is representing Raisbeck’s family, told local ABC affiliate KMGH that the case had been investigated by the First Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT). It stated there was “no evidence that law enforcement engaged in any criminal conduct that caused the death of Ms. Raisbeck.”
Springsteen called the CIRT investigation “inadequate,” telling KMGH, “I don’t know if the investigators had medical backgrounds, but they certainly missed the fact that Ashley was administered a medication that she was allergic to.”
