The Jefferson County Jail (Jesse Paul, The Denver Post)
Kenneth McGill's face was drooping, his voice slurred and one side of his body numb in 2012 when he told a nurse at the Jefferson County Jail that he was having a stroke.
A U.S. District Court jury awarded McGill $11 million on Monday after finding that Correctional Healthcare Companies, and the nurse they employed at the jail, were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs. Twenty-four hours passed before he received treatment.
The Jefferson County commission and Sheriff Ted Mink were also named in the 42-page lawsuit.
McGill, 46, still walks with a limp as a result of his stroke on Sept. 17, 2012.
"I was scared to death that I was going to die," McGill said Tuesday in a phone interview. "I was actively having a stroke in front of nursing staff and they were telling me that I was wrong. It was pretty disheartening."
McGill, who was being held on a DUI charge, was working in the jail kitchen when a headache struck and he began to feel dizzy.
A nurse told McGill he was probably dehydrated and told him to drink water.
Later, as he tried to go to dinner he had trouble navigating the stairs. A deputy put him in a wheelchair and took him to see a physician's assistant who took some tests and again sent him back to a "pod" where his bed was located.
"While he was sitting in the common space, trying to watch the Broncos game, his symptoms dramatically escalated," according to the suit, handled by Civil Rights lawyers Holland, Holland Edwards & Grossman.
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Former Jefferson County inmate awarded $11 million after stroke