The state has agreed to a $7.2 million settlement with a man who had all of his fingers and both feet amputated after the medical staff at Oahu Community Correctional Center failed to diagnose and get him treatment for a blood infection.
The state attorney general will be asking state lawmakers in the coming weeks to provide $4 million to settle the lawsuit in the case, spokesman Joshua Wisch said.
According to the settlement agreement, the state’s insurance company will pay the rest.
Aaron Persin went to OCCC following his arrest on Sept. 29, 2011, after skipping court on charges of drunken driving and operating a vehicle after his license was suspended. Two separate judges had issued bench warrants of $750 and $250, respectively.
Persin’s civil lawyer, Richard Turbin, says Persin was unable to pay the bail amounts because he had lost his job and was living in his vehicle.
According to his suit, Persin went to OCCC’s infirmary four times on Oct. 4 for head pain, dizziness, blurry vision, fever and chills. After each visit nurses gave him Tylenol and told him to drink more water. The nurses also consulted a prison doctor by phone, who ordered them to take a blood sample the following morning for tests.
During the blood draw Persin showed the nurse a wound on his left forearm that he said started as a scratch he got during his arrest. Turbin said Persin had resisted arrest. The wound had pus surrounded by red, swollen tissue.
The doctor who ordered the blood tests saw Persin later that morning and assessed that Persin’s condition may have been due to a strep infection on his arm. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic, but prison officials did not fill the prescription until the following day, the lawsuit says.
OCCC medical staff relayed the test results by telephone to the doctor, who ordered Persin taken to the Queen’s Medical Center emergency department. Prison officials transported Persin rather than call for an ambulance.
Hospital staff determined that Persin was suffering from severe blood infection, or sepsis, and kidney failure due to septic shock. Despite treatment Persin’s condition worsened. Doctors sedated him and put him on life support. They also confirmed Persin’s wound contained a streptococcus bacteria, the likely cause of the sepsis.
A week later doctors took Persin off sedation and life support and told him that he needed amputation. The septic shock caused multiorgan failure, which cut off blood circulation to his extremities.
When the hospital discharged Persin on Dec. 4, 2011, his mother was there to take him back to Indiana where she was to arrange home assist care and rehabilitation services.
Turbin says Persin has since returned to Hawaii where friends are helping him.
“He’s a very courageous and gutsy guy,” Turbin said.
Before Persin’s discharge a state judge dismissed the driving with a suspended license case, after a public defender told the judge that Persin was in the hospital in failing condition, according to court minutes. A different judge dismissed a second driving with a suspended license case and the DUI after another public defender erroneously told the judge that Persin had died in August. It’s unclear why that public defender reported inaccurate information to the judge.
A third judge approved the $7.2 million settlement between Persin and the state in October. The other defendant in the lawsuit, and against whom the state has a counterclaim, Altres Staffing, is appealing the approval.
State Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Toni Schwartz said most of the nurses in the department’s facilities are state employees. She said the department also hires registered nurses from a temp agency to fill vacancies from time to time.
Turbin said two of the three nurses who saw Persin at OCCC were provided by Altres.
