The lawsuit said that although Neville was considered a special needs inmate, he was not immediately sent to the hospital. He was pinned to the floor while Heughins tried to get a pulse, and then he was handcuffed, placed in a restraint chair and taken to a multipurpose room on another floor of the jail.
Neville asked to be turned over so he could breathe. A detention officer told Neville that he was breathing because he was talking and yelling, the lawsuit said.
After three and a half minutes, Neville “uttered the last intelligible phrase he ever made,” the lawsuit said.
Another detention officer came into the room at one point and told the officers to straighten Neville’s legs. She was in charge of jail operations that night, according to the lawsuit. She made no other suggestions, the lawsuit said.
After five minutes in the prone position, Neville had stopped moving.
A detention officer asked Neville if he was OK and Neville groaned a reply. The officer took that as Neville saying he was fine, the lawsuit said.
By the time the bolt cutters removed the handcuffs, Neville had been in a prone position for 12 minutes. Detention officers removed Neville’s blue jumpsuit and left Neville alone in the prone position in the jail cell.
They went back in and started life-saving measures when Heughins noticed Neville wasn’t breathing.
Nearly 20 minutes after Neville was first placed in the prone position, Heughins started CPR, according to the lawsuit. Neville had to be revived several times both at the jail and at the hospital before he went into a coma. He was declared dead on Dec. 4, 2019.
An autopsy report said Neville died from a brain injury caused when his heart stopped and his brain was deprived of oxygen. He asphyxiated while being restrained with his arms behind his back and his legs folded up, often referred to informally as “hog-tied.”
Holy shit this all sounds so awful.