Driving home from work the day her life changed forever, Nicole McClure felt her legs tingling and her sense of direction falter. Then he noticed colorful lights illuminating the landscape in the early morning.
“Oh, pretty lights,” she remembers thinking, not realizing a highway patrol car was coming up behind her. On what was supposed to be a simple drive home from her night job at Walmart near Olympia, Washington, Ms. McClure became increasingly disoriented and ended up hitting two roundabouts before pulling over.
The state trooper who had been following her ran to her door with his gun drawn, yelling for her to get out of the car, according to dash cam video. He demanded to know if she had been drinking or using drugs. She denied it. “I don’t feel very well,” he said. The soldier was not convinced. She was taken to jail, charged with driving under the influence.
The arrest was the start of a 24-hour ordeal in the criminal justice system at a time when Ms McClure was in desperate need of medical attention. Her lawyers said she was left lying in her own urine on the floor of a cell as prison officials, apparently dismissing her as drunk, mocked her. When someone finally realized she needed medical attention, doctors discovered a brain hemorrhage and rushed her to the operating room. She spent 17 days in hospital and was no longer able to work or take care of herself.
Ms. McClure’s case, detailed in a lawsuit, records and interviews, offers a chilling look at how the quick assumptions law enforcement officers sometimes make during traffic stops can have devastating consequences.
Many law enforcement agencies now offer drug recognition training to help officers distinguish between someone under the influence and someone in a medical crisis. However, failed assessments continue to lead to delays in medical care, some of which are fatal. Boston and San Diego have had recent cases of drunken arrests that turned out to be drivers who had strokes. A similar case occurred last year in Puyallup, Wash.
Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who is now a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said it can sometimes be difficult for officers to tell whether a person’s behavior is the result of mental illness, substances or a medical episode. The most recent training recommendations, he said, ask officers to be on the lookout for indicators of medical problems and to err on the side of calling for help if there is a potential health problem.
“Officers are not doctors, they are not paramedics,” he said. “They really do not have, and are not expected to have, the expertise to diagnose what is causing medical distress. But they are supposed to be able to identify indicators.”
Immediately after the stop, troopers began investigating why Ms. McClure was driving erratically.
“I knew I wasn’t drunk, I just didn’t feel well,” Ms. McClure said in an interview at her apartment, where she is now mostly confined by brain damage that her lawsuit claims was greatly aggravated by the delay. in medical care.
A spokesman for the Washington State Patrol declined to comment, citing the litigation. Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders, who oversees the jail where Ms. McClure was held, said in a statement that a thorough investigation into the “serious” allegations is underway.
“The safety of our inmates and staff remains our top priority,” he said.
Before her arrest, Mrs McClure, 38, enjoyed hiking and cooking. She keeps photos of herself from that time now that she finds it difficult to do any activity.
She got a job as a night shifter at Walmart in 2022. She was still on the job one night in March of that year when she found herself feeling confused. She seemed unable to operate the scanning device she used for her work. Her hands sweated and her legs ached.
Her boss let her leave work early.
Trooper Jonathan Barnes wrote that he saw Ms. McClure’s car traveling at a low speed and drifting out of its lane. He turned on his lights but then turned them off when the car did not stop. He later watched as the vehicle went over an elevated section of a roundabout and then hit a second one.
After Ms. McClure stopped, Mr. Barnes is seen in the video yelling at her to get out of her vehicle. He accused her of fleeing the police and resisting arrest and handcuffed her. One of her hands was still attached to her keys, and the trooper accused her of trying to use them as a weapon, though there was no sign of that in the video.
In a flat voice, Mrs. McClure insisted that she had not escaped. “I think I’m really tired,” she said. He said he had left work because he was “feeling dizzy” and denied taking drugs. “Just let me go, please,” she said.
But Mr. Barnes dismissed her protests. “All you’re telling me is that you’re under the influence,” he told her.
In a field sobriety test, according to records, another soldier asked Ms. McClure to estimate when 30 seconds had passed. He guessed it in 35 seconds. The troopers reported that he had “obvious tremors in the eyelids.” He informed them that he had smoked marijuana two days earlier. He was then taken to the hospital – not for treatment, but to get blood drawn to check for toxins.
Before those results could be analyzed, Ms. McClure was taken to the county jail. There, Ms. McClure recalled, one of the guards teased her, saying, “Why don’t you have another shot?” He said she replied that she wasn’t drunk, but she wasn’t feeling well.
“I remember them telling me I had to change their clothes,” Ms McClure said. “I went to try on my pants and I couldn’t put my pants on. I kept putting the same foot in the same pant.”
From there, she was placed in a holding cell, where she was at one point found in a puddle of her own urine, her lawyers said. He started vomiting.
She remained that way for more than 24 hours, until the prison’s medical team was called to examine her and advised her to be taken to the hospital, records show. Toxicology analysis found no signs of alcohol or drugs.
Instead, doctors at the hospital diagnosed a brain bleed that likely started with a blood clot and removed part of her skull to relieve pressure, according to Ms. McClure’s lawsuit. Her brain damage resulted in “a lifetime of diminished capacity,” the suit claims.
In the lawsuit, Ms. McClure’s lawyer, Anne Vankirk, argued that the long-term injuries were preventable and suffered as a result of delays in receiving treatment.
Ms McClure struggled to find the words to describe her condition in an interview last week. The episode, she said, left her struggling to take care of herself. He cannot drive or work. Sometimes she doesn’t remember her medical appointments, or even where she is.
“I’m afraid to go into a store not knowing where my ride is parked,” he said. “I’m afraid to go out.”