A woman in Maryland filed a lawsuit accusing the Washington County jail of neglect while she was delivering a baby, alone, in her jail cell. She specifically is suing Washington County, PrimeCare Medical Inc, five nurses employed by the county and three jail staff members.

Jazmin Valentine claims that she had to go through labor on a filthy concrete floor without help, and that nurses associated with PrimeCare Medical Inc. laughed at her, accusing her of faking labor and trying to find an excuse to get out of her jail cell. 

According to the lawsuit, one of the nurses allegedly told her, “You were checked out on day shift and you are not in active labor, you are withdrawing. You are not going out to the hospital.”

Valentine said she was alone in a cell without blankets or sheets, or other supplies. While in labor, she punched the walls to get through her painful contractions. To prove she was in labor, she slid what she thought was the baby’s amniotic sac under the jail door so the guards and nurses could see the graphic evidence.

“Ms Valentine experienced one of the most profound and painful moments in anyone’s life, alone, on a filthy cell floor with no sanitation, no medical care, and no assistance of any kind. She had not so much as a blanket for comfort,” the lawsuit alleged.

A fellow inmate heard her constant screams and managed to call her boyfriend. He tried to get help for Valentine, but hit a dead end.

The lawsuit alleges that one jail deputy tried to get the nurses to help Valentine, but they ignored him. He did not go any further to get assistance for her. 

A deputy found Valentine with a baby right after midnight, on July 4, 2021. According to the lawsuit, an ambulance was called to take them to the hospital. 

Valentine said she feared for her child’s life but realized that she was on her own, or, as she put it, in the hands of the devil, but she just had to push through it. Luckily, she was able to assist herself in the birth of her child safely and without further complications. 

The lawsuit accuses Washington County, the sheriff’s department, and the nurses and deputies at Washington County jail of violating Jazmine’s constitutional rights and her rights under state law.

According to the lawsuit, Valentine had been arrested for a violation of her probation when she was already more than eight months pregnant. She went into labor the day after she was put in jail. She was released a few days after giving birth, and her baby girl is doing well, after developing a resistant bacterial infection, due to the unsanitary conditions in the cell. 

A similar lawsuit was filed in 2019 by a woman named Diana Sanchez. She, too, gave birth alone, in a Denver jail cell in 2018. Just like Valentine, nurses and deputies at the jail ignored her screams for help for five hours. Surveillance footage released by her lawyers, the law firm which also represents Valentine, showed Diana delivering a baby on her own and screaming in pain. The city of Denver decided to settle the suit.

Last month, Orange County parted with $480,000 to settle a suit after an inmate miscarried her baby after deputies transporting her to the hospital stopped at Starbucks. Nurses and deputies ignored her for two hours after her water broke.