- The family of Terral Ellis was awarded $33 million by a federal grand jury.
- According to the lawsuit, Ellis died in Oklahoma’s Ottawa County Jail in October 2015.
- Court documents state that jail staff ignored Ellis’s cries for help as he died from sepsis.
A federal grand jury has awarded $33 million to the family of a man who tragically lost his life in an Oklahoma jail.
According to the lawsuit, which was reviewed by Insider, jail staff negligently refused to provide assistance and even mocked Terral Ellis, a 26-year-old man, as he succumbed to sepsis and pneumonia.
Ellis tragically passed away on October 22, 2015, inside Oklahoma’s Ottawa County Jail, after jail staff callously ignored his desperate pleas for medical help. He had been incarcerated for 12 days due to a failure to appear in court on a DUI charge, as reported by The Frontier, a Tulsa-based nonprofit news organization.
The lawsuit alleges that jail staff and nurses exhibited deliberate indifference to the substantial risk posed to Ellis’s life by his medical condition.
“During this time period, Mr. Ellis continued to exhibit symptoms of a serious and life-threatening illness, including seizures, convulsions, uncontrollable sweating, dehydration, and the inability to walk, along with severe pain in his back, ribs, and internal organs,” states the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also describes how fellow inmates had to assist Ellis by feeding and watering him, and he had to use cups to urinate since he was unable to do so independently.
Despite expressing his fear of dying while incarcerated, the lawsuit reveals that Ellis was met with apathy from corrections officers when he had a seizure. The officers simply placed ammonia sticks under his nose until the seizure ended, providing no further medical care.
Nurse Theresa Horn and other jail staff members responded to Ellis’s requests for help by dismissing him and instructing him to “stop faking it and to lay down and serve his time.”
Disturbing surveillance video obtained by KSNF, a local NBC affiliate, captured Ellis’s agony as he repeatedly screamed for help and complained about his pain. In the footage, Horn can be seen screaming at Ellis and telling him to “shut up.”
According to The Frontier, the jail had a policy instructing staff to be skeptical of inmates seeking medical attention.
Horn and the two corrections officers named as defendants in the lawsuit faced no repercussions or criminal charges in relation to Ellis’s death, as reported by The Frontier.
Sheriff David Dean, who assumed office after Ellis’s death, explained that the staff members were not disciplined because the sheriff’s department was unaware of the video’s audio until two years after the incident. The footage came to light once Ellis’s family filed the lawsuit.
Ellis’s family expressed hope that the verdict would lead to police reform. They intend to utilize the funds received from the lawsuit to support Ellis’s son, who was only four years old at the time of his father’s tragic passing.
“Terral Ellis was subjected to torturous treatment during his time at Ottawa County Jail,” stated the family in a release. “With basic humane treatment, his suffering and death could have been prevented.”
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