West Side jail blamed in death

SEATTLE – King County jail staff failed to diagnose the perforated ulcer that led to the excruciating death of an inmate, an outside review determined, and the doctor who was responsible for the inmate’s care has resigned.

Two outside medical experts hired by the county ombudsman’s office wrote that it should have been apparent to medical personnel that the worsening symptoms and deteriorating condition of Lynn Dale Iszley, 47, indicated problems worse than alcohol and heroin withdrawal before he died on July 19.

The physician, who was not identified, responsible for Iszley’s treatment was placed on administrative leave after Iszley died and resigned before the investigation was complete, said James Apa, a spokesman for the Seattle-King County Public Health Department.

An inquest into the death is planned, and a pre-inquest hearing is set for today.

The investigation report by Dr. Lori Kohler, director of the Correctional Medicine Consultation Network and professor of clinical family and community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and Dr. M. Dean Dellinger, assistant professor of internal medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, was released Wednesday by the public health agency.

“From an outside observer perspective is (sic) appears to me that they let this man suffer and did nothing,” Kohler wrote, adding that it appeared he had never been examined by a physician.

Jail and medical records show Iszley was writhing in agony and begging to go to a hospital for nearly two days before he died in the jail’s infirmary; staff said they believed he was in withdrawal.

After he was found on the floor of his cell, covered in sweat and unable to sit up without help, Iszley was examined by a nurse who left him in his cell. The next day, he complained that he could not eat, was vomiting and nauseous and had not urinated in three days.

About an hour later he was found unconscious and he was pronounced dead less than an hour after that.