A Vermont prison inmate was placed in solitary confinement for drug withdrawal and died for want of adequate medical care, his family alleges in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
David L. Bissonnette, 38, of Burlington, died on November 22, 2016 of bacterial endocarditis, a heart infection often associated with intravenous drug use, a few hours after an ambulance rushed him from Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton to a hospital.
Bissonnette had been arraigned on November 7, 2016, on charges that he failed to appear in court, violated conditions of release and stole a laptop. He could not afford to post $4,000 bail, the suit says, so he was sent to prison. During intake, he revealed to staff that he had been taking buprenorphine, an opioid-addiction medication.
“[O]fficials who assigned Bissonnette to segregation expected Bissonnette to be going through withdrawal (as they would not let him continue to use buprenorphine),” the suit contends.
It continues: “It thus appears that officials from NWSCF addressed the problem they created by stopping buprenorphine by imposing administrative segregation in contravention of their own policies, so they would not be forced to actively supervise someone going through the torment of sudden opioid withdrawal.”
Bissonnette repeatedly complained about aching in his chest, shortness of breath and dizziness during the 16 days between his admission to the prison and his death, the suit says.
“I can’t breathe,” he yelled from his cell on November 16, according to the suit. A medical staffer concluded he was having an anxiety attack, and gave him a book of word search puzzles to distract him.
The suit contends that the DOC and its health care contractor, Centurion of Vermont, were negligent in failing to provide adequate care that could have cured the heart infection.
Brattleboro lawyer James Valente filed the civil suit in Vermont Superior Court in Chittenden County on behalf of Bissonnette’s 12-year-old daughter and the girl’s mother, Christine Sabens. Valente said Bissonnette’s death could have been prevented.
He should not have been placed in solitary confinement, which is typically used for disciplinary reasons, Valente said. His medical complaints were essentially dismissed even after health workers detected that he had a heart murmur, according to Valente.
“It appears that every medical symptom that he had, no matter how serious it was on its face, they simply assumed was related to his withdrawal,” Valente said.
His life should not have ended the way it did, the lawyer asserted. “He had a kid,” he said. “He had a lot of life in front of him.”
The suit names numerous corrections employees, including Greg Hale, superintendent of the Northwest State Correctional Facility, and several Centurion employees.
Corrections Commissioner Mike Touchette declined to discuss the lawsuit Wednesday. “Because it’s pending litigation it’s not something I will be able to comment on,” Touchette said.
Bissonnette was denied buprenorphine because he did not have a prescription, his lawyer said.
In November 2017, Seven Days reported in a cover story that the DOC routinely denied inmates treatment. Still, even then, inmates with prescriptions did typically get up to 90 days of treatment.
Meanwhile, the DOC has since expanded access to treatment. Last year, the legislature passed a law to make buprenorphine available to inmates for as long as they need it. About 640 inmates are currently being medicated for opiate addiction, Touchette said.
The department plans to assess how the program is working, he added.
“We will be issuing [a request for proposals] this coming year that seeks an independent body to do an evaluation of the effectiveness and quality of the department’s [medically assisted treatment] program,” he said. “We are looking forward to having that report and getting a better understanding of how well we’re doing.”
The lawsuit, meanwhile, seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Bissonnette’s death is not the first to spotlight endocarditis and the opioid epidemic. Seven Days reported in December 2017 that the illness, once rare, was becoming increasingly common because of intravenous drug use.
Vermont resident Madelyn Linsenmeir died of the infection after her arrest in Massachusetts last year. Her obit, which dealt frankly with her drug abuse, was read by thousands of people around the world.
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My heart goes out to Christine and her child. Reading those court docs was painful and I can’t imagine how difficult it will be for their daughter to read later as an adult. Everyone at that correctional facility failed him, failed to do their job, and should be held accountable.
Good lord – when do we stop seeing people who are incarcerated as people deserving of basic care?
Venturing is a fortune 500 company that doesn’t care about the inmates health! I know from experience in the past and they do neglect your health.. As a matter of fact I was told by one of the nurses that the only time you get professional treatment is if you are about dead then they would send you to the hospital! It must be true what she said! Also centurian is the cheapest contract health care and Vermont always get the cheapest contract help! They are also the supposed health care used by most prisons. Think about why there’s so many prison deaths!
This was more like a conspiracy to commit murder than a simple mistake, and there should be criminal charges. But it happens all of the time. People in jail are routinely denied medication which they have a prescription for. Sometimes they die, the taxpayers cover the lawsuit, and the perpetrators go free. Rinse and repeat. The bottom line is that a prohibition regime (which allows police to routinely abuse power) will attract a lot of bullies who enjoy hurting people. If you create working conditions that appeal most strongly to psychopaths, that is precisely what you are going to get. If you want to improve the quality of law enforcement, you absolutely must end prohibition, because prohibition is based on the fascist premise that all men do NOT have equal rights. This attracts people with a fascist mindset to police work, while discouraging the good and moral people from pursuing a career in law enforcement. Nobody wants to do something for the state that is against their conscience, so what you get in a prohibition regime is people without a conscience who simply don’t care about others at all.