A woman gave birth alone in a Kentucky jail cell. She gets a $200,000 settlement.
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A woman who gave birth alone and without medical help in a Kentucky jail cell will receive $200,000 to settle a lawsuit.
Kelsey Love, 32, charged in the lawsuit that staffers at the Franklin County Regional Jail were indifferent to her medical needs as she screamed in pain on the floor during her labor and delivery in May 2017.
U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove approved the agreement to settle the complaint Wednesday.
Love’s attorney, Aaron J. Bentley, said the agreement is for a $200,000 payment to Love.
“We certainly view it as a vindication of her rights,” Bentley said.
The jail’s insurance company will pay the settlement.
The lawsuit was against Franklin County and several jail employees, including Rick Rogers, who was jailer at the time of the incident but resigned in 2019. They denied any wrongdoing.
Paul C. Harnice, an attorney for the county and jail employees, said they did not admit fault in the settlement.
“The defendants always have and will continue to strive to provide the best medical care to all persons at the Franklin County Regional Jail,” Harnice said.
Police arrested Love early on May 14, 2017 after pulling her over on U.S. 127 in Frankfort for suspected impaired driving. Love was living in Southern Indiana at the time.
She was driving her mother’s Cadillac Escalade, which her mother had reported stolen, and told police she had abused methamphetamine and opioid drugs, according to the citation.
Love told jail staffers she was eight months pregnant.
Two days later, early on May 16, Love began screaming for help in her cell.
Court records indicate some jail employees believed Love was distraught because she was coming off drugs.
At one point, however, a female deputy jailer went into the cell and talked to Love, who was lying naked on the floor, holding her stomach, crying and asking for help, according to a court document.
Love told the deputy something was wrong with the baby, that it was “coming out,” and asked to be taken to see a doctor.
The deputy asked Love if she was having contractions and Love indicated she was.
The deputy contacted the on-call nurse for the jail. The nurse said she would check on Love later that morning and to keep observing Love frequently, according to court records.
About three hours later, after the nurse came in for her regular shift, she and a deputy jailer found a large amount of blood on the floor of Love’s cell.
Love had given birth to a boy, then ripped open her mattress and crawled inside it with the newborn, Bentley said in one motion.
The umbilical cord was detached. Love told the nurse she had chewed it off.
“You can imagine it was pretty traumatic,” Bentley said.
Attorneys for the jail staffers named in the case argued they acted properly, observing Love and calling the nurse to report she was in pain.
There was no evidence jail employees were aware Love was in labor, and they relied on the nurse’s advice on what to do, attorneys for the employees and the county argued.
However, Love’s attorney argued it was obvious Love was in labor, and that the deputy jailer who called the nurse did not provide critical information, such as Love having contractions.
The company that provided medical care to inmates under a contract with the jail, Chattanooga-based Southern Health Partners, also said the deputy did not give the nurse enough information.
Bentley said in an interview that Love still has night terrors as a result of her ordeal. One expert testified the amount of blood she lost was two and one-half times greater than would be expected in a delivery, Bentley said.
Love has since successfully completed drug treatment, has been sober for two years and is working to regain custody of her children, Bentley said. The boy she had at the jail is nearly 4 years old.
“She’s doing great,” Bentley said of Love.
This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 2:42 PM.
