A woman who was left to deliver her baby on the floor of an Alabama jail shower settled her lawsuit against the county, which she claimed treated her as “less than nothing.”
Ashley Caswell sued Etowah County, the sheriff’s office, the jail, and officials in federal court in October 2023 after giving birth there two years before. She and her baby survived, but Caswell nearly died from a placental abruption that caused heavy bleeding, according to her attorneys.
“I felt they treated me as if I were nothing, and I was terrified that my baby and I would die. “I felt compelled to speak out by filing the lawsuit,” Caswell said in a press release Monday.
“It wasn’t easy to stand up for myself, but reaching this point today confirms that I made the right decision to sue.” I hope they will take steps to prevent this from happening to another woman in the future.”
Caswell accused the county of “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs” and negligence, among other allegations. The settlement’s terms were kept confidential.
She was arrested in March 2021 under Alabama’s chemical endangerment law for using drugs while two months pregnant. According to the Bloomston Firm, the law, which was passed in 2006, was intended to punish parents who exposed their children to drugs, particularly meth, at a time when it was rampant throughout the state.
However, according to AL.com, the law has been disproportionately applied to pregnant women like Caswell.
The 62-page complaint claimed denial of prenatal health care and psychiatric medication. Plaintiff lawyers claimed that jail officials refused to transport her to a facility about 65 miles away that specialized in high-risk pregnancies like Caswell’s, which had previously been standard practice, because the jail “did not have enough people to transport her there.” According to the lawsuit, she was taken to the facility while pregnant in the jail in 2019.
Officials also refused to take her to weekly prenatal appointments after she reached week 36 of her pregnancy, according to her lawsuit.
“As a direct result of Defendants’ actions and inactions, Ms. Caswell’s constitutional rights were violated because she did not receive regular prenatal medical attention necessary for her high-risk pregnancy,” according to the suit.
In September 2021, jail staff transported her to a nearby hospital after she began having contractions. Doctors said she was suffering from “poor nutrition” and was “highly stressed” as a result of a lack of sleep, having spent the majority of her pregnancy sleeping on a floor mattress.
According to the complaint, she was forced to sleep on the floor despite doctors’ recommendations for a bottom bunk bed.
Caswell’s water broke on October 16, 2021, three days before her scheduled labor induction. She told staff she needed to go to the emergency room, but they allegedly told her she “just needed to lie down” in a medical unit cell.
Caswell spent about 12 hours “constantly screaming from agonizing pain and begging for help,” according to the lawsuit. Instead of assisting her, staff allegedly instructed her to “sleep it off.”
Plaintiff lawyers stated that staff took her to the shower room around 6 p.m. on the day in question. One employee allegedly stood a few feet away but did not assist.
“She turned off the water and delivered her baby while standing upright on a concrete floor, without the aid of any medical personnel or medication,” according to the complaint.
Caswell later stated that it felt like her body was “ripping apart.”
Several staff members arrived at the shower area at this time. According to the lawsuit, as she lay naked and bleeding on the floor, a couple of staff members posed for a photo with the baby while the umbilical cord remained attached. She was cleared to go to the hospital but had to wait another 20 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Paramedics cut the cord and took her to the hospital.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys included Pregnancy Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.
“This settlement sends a clear message: A person’s carceral status doesn’t make them any less human or deserving of civil rights,” Pregnancy Justice Senior Staff Attorney Emma Roth said in a statement.
Pregnancy Justice stated that Caswell’s treatment is “part of a disturbing pattern of inhumane treatment at the jail.”
Caswell’s drug addiction appears to have continued after she was released from jail in April 2022. She tested positive for meth in August of that year, while she was about four months pregnant, and was arrested again on a chemical endangerment charge.
A spokesperson for the Etowah County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a message seeking comment.
