Olivia Scullark’s 27-year-old son was less than three months from getting out of prison when the state “put him to death,” she believes.

The St. Paul man had seizures in his Rush City cell and collapsed, lying in his own urine overnight. Minnesota Department of Corrections nurses and correctional officers did not provide medical care for eight hours and one nurse turned away an ambulance, according to claims in a federal lawsuit seeking more than $1 million, filed Monday, June 25. Xavius Scullark-Johnson died.

“I feel like they failed him that night, and they need to have some consequences for what they didn’t do and for what they let happen,” Scullark said. “These people are supposed to be there to help, not to just walk past somebody who’s sickly all night long. Taxpayer dollars don’t go to them to do that to my kid, let alone anybody else’s kid.”

A Corrections Department spokeswoman said the department is not commenting on the lawsuit.

Scullark’s attorney, Jordan Kushner, said he “can’t imagine a theory that would have justified their treatment of Xavius Scullark-Johnson.” He heard from other inmates that staff ignored Scullark-Johnson because they thought he complained too much. Kushner also wonders whether the cost of medical care was a factor.

“The system was designed to cut costs rather than provide adequate medical attention,” he said. Corrections has 24/7 nursing care only at Oak Park Heights, which houses a medical unit, and Faribault, which has a unit for aging offenders.

Prison nurses are Corrections Department employees, but prison doctors work for Corizon, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based private company with which the state contracts to provide medical services. The company, not named in the lawsuit, has a $28 million contract this year with the department. Under the contract, physicians work weekdays in the prisons, not nights or weekends.

Corrections spokesman Sarah Berg issued a statement to answer questions about the use of Corizon: “The department must balance the needs of our offender population with the limited resources appropriated by the Legislature. One of the tools the DOC uses is a contract with a private health care company to help manage care in a cost-efficient manner while still complying with community standards of care. … It should be noted that the DOC does not train staff to consider costs when responding to life-threatening emergencies.”

Scullark’s suit is against Denise Garin and Linda S. Andrews, both registered nurses the department employed at the Rush City prison, as well as other medical staff, correctional officers or officials. Kushner wrote in the complaint that he hasn’t determined their names because Corrections “has improperly withheld documents and information from plaintiff regarding the events leading to Mr. Scullark-Johnson’s death.”

“Defendants’ deliberate indifference to Mr. Scullark-Johnson’s serious medical needs caused his death,” Kushner wrote in the complaint, which claims violations of Scullark-Johnson’s federal constitutional rights of due process and equal protection and against cruel and unusual punishment.

HISTORY OF SEIZURES

Scullark-Johnson, convicted of second-degree assault, was serving a five-month sentence for a probation violation. He had a history of seizure disorder, which Corrections and its health care providers “were well aware of,” the complaint said. Department records showed he had to be hospitalized while in prison for serious seizures.

His mother said he’d had grand mal seizures since he was 10 and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses at age 13.

Scullark, who works as a St. Paul police records clerk, believes Scullark-Johnson needed to be in a medical facility for mental health treatment but said she thinks the criminal justice system couldn’t keep him out of prison after he was convicted of wounding a woman in a stabbing. He was off his medications when it happened, Scullark said.

The lawsuit’s complaint gives the following account:

On June 22, 2010, a physician assistant cut Scullark-Johnson’s dosage of Dilantin, a medication used to control seizures, in half because it was determined the level in his blood was too high. His Dilantin level was to be rechecked in one to two weeks. Autopsy tests showed his level was “less than half the appropriate therapeutic range,” the complaint said.

Sometime after 10 p.m. June 28, Scullark-Johnson had a serious seizure, fell to the floor of his cell and lost consciousness. Corrections officers saw him unresponsive and contacted prison health services; Andrews responded.

Andrews saw Scullark-Johnson lying on the floor, a lump on his head and urine on the floor. Her report showed she did not take his blood pressure, pulse or temperature or check other vital signs, nor did she consult with a doctor. She left him, and her shift ended soon after.

“There were no nurses or medical providers on duty at the prison after Defendant Andrews left,” Kushner wrote. “She therefore improperly entrusted any further medical attention to Mr. Scullark’s serious and grave condition to nonmedical personnel.”

Andrews retired in November after nine years with the Corrections Department. A phone number for her couldn’t be located.

As Scullark-Johnson’s seizures continued that night and into the morning of June 29, his cellmate “repeatedly called for correctional officers to respond … and provide medical care,” the complaint said. They refused and put his cellmate in segregation, leaving Scullark-Johnson alone.

A correctional officer phoned the doctor on call about 3:30 a.m. but “did not provide complete information” about Scullark-Johnson’s condition; the doctor suggested letting the inmate sleep and “watching him carefully until health services staff arrived,” the complaint said.

About an hour later, a corrections officer again contacted the doctor “due to concern” about Scullark-Johnson’s condition. The doctor instructed officers to call an ambulance; it arrived at the prison at 5:39 a.m.

AMBULANCE SENT AWAY

Ambulance staffers saw Scullark-Johnson lying on the ground, with blood and spit on the floor where he had bitten the inside of his mouth. They began to examine him, but Garin arrived on duty, instructed ambulance staff not to transport him to the hospital and sent them away.

“According to the ambulance report, health services staff advised the ambulance staff that the prison health services had protocols to deal with Mr. Scullark-Johnson and would take over his care,” Kushner wrote in the complaint. The nurse and correctional officers did not provide any medical care, leaving Scullark-Johnson “lying in the cell by himself after he had suffered numerous serious seizures, was disoriented, unable to control his bodily functions, and had injured himself from his seizures.”

Garin was called to the cell a little less than an hour later to examine Scullark-Johnson, who again was face-down and unresponsive. The nurse “claims in her notes that she went to call a physician, and shortly thereafter, corrections officers reported that Mr. Scullark-Johnson had no pulse. An ambulance was again called. CPR was attempted unsuccessfully.”

Garin, who has worked for the department since 2007, is still a nurse at the Rush City prison. She declined a Pioneer Press request for comment.

Scullark-Johnson was brought to the hospital that night, declared brain dead and removed from life support June 30. The cause of death: complications of seizure disorder.

Scullark said she heard from her son’s fellow inmates that he hadn’t received medical attention, and Kushner found records documenting their accounts.

“Who dies of seizures these days if they’ve got the right medicine?” Scullark asked. “If he was in my hands and he died like that, I think I’d be held accountable on something right now because you can’t even treat an animal like that and not have consequences.”

Scullark-Johnson had told his mother in letters that “they can’t afford to keep taking him to the hospital or to the doctors,” Scullark said, adding she doesn’t know who at the prison her son was referring to as “they.”

“He would tell me he didn’t think he was going to get out of there alive,” Scullark said.

Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262. Follow her at twitter.com/MaraGottfried or twitter.com/ppUsualSuspects.