Denny Adan Gonzalez was still alive when a guard discovered him unresponsive in a cell at large for-profit immigration detention center in Lumpkin, Georgia.
Gonzalez, an immigrant originally from Cuba who had been living in North Carolina, was hanging from a bed sheet at the Stewart Detention Center after apparently attempting suicide.
After staff at the jail brought him down to the floor, a nurse determined Gonzalez, 33, had “a thready pulse and shallow respirations,” an ICE report noted.
An employee at the detention center called 911 to request an ambulance, but it would take more than half an hour for one to arrive.
Federal detention regulations require detainees have “timely access” to emergency care outside a detention center, but a Scripps News investigation found the isolated location of the Stewart Detention Center often means it can take a while to get immigrants to a hospital for the urgent medical help they need.
It is a significant risk for the 2,000 immigrants from around the country who find themselves locked up in Lumpkin, a rural town in the southwest part of the state with a population less than half of the number of people held in the detention center.
Audio of the 911 call from Stewart on April 28 reveals it took more than a minute for a dispatcher to understand the gravity of Gonzalez’s need for an ambulance.
The caller from Stewart to 911 repeatedly says there has been a hanging at the detention center.
“I'm sorry, it's very hard for me to hear you,” the dispatcher responds.
“A hanging in bed, segregation, for a 0-1 high-custody male,” the caller repeats.
"One second, okay, can you tell me the symptoms or something, 'cause I don't know what that is,” the dispatcher says.
After a minute and 13 seconds, the dispatcher finally says help is on the way. But there is another problem. Neither of the county’s two ambulances are available. Both are likely out on other calls. Regional dispatchers find an ambulance from a nearby county, but it is 18 minutes away.
Scripps News has learned a firefighter would end up racing to the jail in his personal vehicle to try to save Gonzalez. By the time he gets there, Gonzalez is no longer responsive without a pulse.
An ambulance from neighboring Webster County finally arrives at 11 p.m., 34 minutes after that guard first found Gonzalez in distress. Medics pronounce him dead.
The autopsy by the local coroner said the death was the result of suicide by hanging.
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The need for an ambulance is common at the Stewart Detention Center.
Records obtained by Scripps News show there have been 206 calls for emergency medical services since the start of last year.
On one day in October, three detainees needed an ambulance at the same time, according to audio of a 911 call.
"We got one male with a high heart rate, the second male throwing up blood, and you got a female with an irregular EKG,” the caller from Stewart says.
The dispatcher tells her there aren’t enough ambulances available.
“I know we can get one ambulance over there, so I don’t know, we’re going to have to get mutual aid for another one,” the dispatcher says. “We only have one ambulance in the county.”
On at least 14 occasions, an ambulance had to come from another county because there wasn't one available close by, according to dispatch records reviewed by Scripps News.
Samantha Hamilton is a Georgia lawyer who advocates for immigrants held at Stewart.
She says there are so many emergency calls because the clinical staff is overwhelmed.
“It seems like the only real medical care they can get is when there's an emergency because unless someone is, you know, screaming in pain or visibly bleeding, a lot of folks are turned away,” Hamilton said.
Once an ambulance arrives, there is still a 35-mile drive to the nearest emergency room.
"These are really, really isolating places,” Hamilton said.
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CoreCivic, the corporate owner of the detention center, says if on-site medical providers determine a detainee cannot wait for an ambulance, they have the option of sending them to a hospital in one of the facility’s vans. Those vehicles are not equipped like an ambulance and are only for transport, CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin said.
“We have trained emergency response teams who work to ensure that any individual in distress receives needed medical care,” Gustin said.
The Department of Homeland Security sent a statement rather than responding to questions submitted by Scripps News.
“As bed space has rapidly expanded, we have maintained higher a standard of care than most prisons that hold U.S. citizens — including providing access to proper medical care,” the statement says in part. “For many illegal aliens this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives."
If you need to talk to someone, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text "HOME" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
