“The Utah nurse garnered national attention after she was manhandled and arrested for refusing to let a police detective take blood from an unconscious patient.”
We all most likely remember the nurse in Utah who was arrested for refusing to allow a blood sample without correct and legal authorization.
The scene unfolded after the release of a video capturing the entire event showing detective Jeff Payne handcuffing the nurse and shoving her into a squad car while she screamed in protest. The footage also showed Payne’s supervisor, Lt. James Tracy, at the scene during the event.
The Utah nurse garnered national attention after she was manhandled and arrested for refusing to let a police detective take blood from an unconscious patient. Utah state law, federal law, and hospital policy all required that police present a warrant or obtain patient consent before drawing blood. Payne had no warrant.
Nurse Wubbels, who was working as the charge nurse, can be seen trying to explain the policy to Payne and even got her supervisor on the phone to back her up. After a tense standoff, Payne grabbed Wubbels by her arms, cuffed her hands behind her back, and shoved her into an unmarked car. Hospital security guards stood by as Wubbels cried “help me” and “this is crazy.”
As a law enforcement officer for decades, I watched the video just like everyone else and knew this was going to turn out bad. The incident took quite a toll on all involved. A scathing internal review by police found that Payne and his supervisor, James Tracy, had violated a range of departmental policies that disgraced the force. In mid-October, Payne was fired, and Tracy was demoted two ranks from lieutenant to officer. Both men have appealed the decision.
The terms of the $500,000-dollar agreement were confidential but are reported to cover all the various potential defendants involved in the incident. That included the University of Utah, Salt Lake City police, and several individual security officers from the university who were present for Wubbels’ arrest but declined to intervene.
“This landed in my lap. This is not something I sought out, but I’m also honored by the weight of it and honored to be the one to help make progress in our society at large”
Wubbels previously stressed that her main concern was protecting hospital staff and preventing the same conflict from happening again.
“Was a lawsuit off the table? It was never off the table, ever, from the very beginning,” Wubbels told reporters Tuesday. “But I also feel like as a whole we need to heal from this, we need to move on, we need to progress, and I feel that we’ve come to a place where we can have that conversation where we can do that.”
A spokesman for Salt Lake City mayor Jackie Biskupski said the city and the university had each agreed to pay Wubbels $250,000. “Salt Lake City has been focused first and foremost on ensuring policies and procedures are changed, so things like this don’t happen again, and we are glad we could come to a resolution with nurse Wubbles,” the spokesman said.
Wubbels, who was an Olympic skier before she became a nurse, said Tuesday she was still processing the chain of events but was optimistic that the fallout from her arrest could ultimately help improve relations between police and nurses.
“This landed in my lap. This is not something I sought out, but I’m also honored by the weight of it and honored to be the one to help make progress in our society at large,” said Wubbels.
