U.S. JAILS Advocates fear more heroin withdrawal deaths

Associated Press

LEBANON, PA.

In the days after her 18-year-old daughter’s first arrest on heroin charges, Stephanie Moyer took solace in thinking she would be safe in jail until she got into a treatment program.

However, Victoria “Tori” Herr sounded disoriented on a call home three days later. She feared she was dying and begged for something to drink, her mother said.

Herr, who had a 10-bag-a-day habit, collapsed after days of severe vomiting and diarrhea at the Lebanon County Correctional Facility. She spent five days in the hospital, then died on Easter Sunday 2015.

Her case is one of at least a half-dozen deaths nationwide during the last two years involving jail heroin withdrawal, and advocates fear the number will grow given the nation’s heroin crisis.

Advocates find the deaths particularly troubling because opioid withdrawal, while miserable, is rarely life-threatening if medication, monitoring and intravenous fluids are available.

“This is a woman who died because she was detoxing,” said Moyer’s lawyer, Jonathan Feinberg, who filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit Monday. “Had Tori Herr’s withdrawal been treated ... she almost certainly would be alive today.”

Warden Robert Karnes told Moyer that his staff followed “all operational protocols,” the lawsuit says. Jail and county officials didn’t return calls Monday seeking comment.

This is an emerging, growing problem, and it’s hitting communities all over the country. That’s exponentially so in jails,” said Emma Freudenberger, a co-counsel on the lawsuit.

Dr. Eke Kalu, the general medical director of the Philadelphia prison system, said quitting heroin is one of the “safer withdrawals” compared with alcohol and some other drugs. The city screens inmates to assess their need for medication or IV fluids. Officials couldn’t remember an opiate withdrawal death in the past decade.

Officials at Rikers Island, in New York, have long run a methadone maintenance program.

But smaller jails may lack in-house medical units or sufficient monitoring. Advocates say that can amount to cruel and unusual punishment.