Johnson County sued over 36-year-old jail inmate’s death

Johnson County is being accused of negligence in a lawsuit over the alcohol-withdrawal death of a 36-year-old jail inmate.

The estate of Nathaniel Davis Jr., who died in March 2024 after serving a portion of his seven-day sentence for drunken driving, is suing Johnson County and 19 individuals in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

The lawsuit alleges Davis “entered the jail healthy and cooperative, but within two days began exhibiting obvious symptoms of severe alcohol withdrawal, including hallucinations, tremors, confusion, and disorientation.”

According to the lawsuit, alcohol withdrawal is a treatable condition that becomes life-threatening if allowed to progress unchecked.

“Despite the clear warning signs, jail staff and medical providers failed to take the necessary and well-established steps to evaluate, monitor, and treat his condition,” the lawsuit asserts. “For more than 35 hours, jail officials and medical personnel ignored Mr. Davis’ escalating medical crisis, leaving him in solitary confinement without proper assessment, medication, hydration, or a hospital transfer.”

The medical provider who eventually saw Davis “spent only minutes at his cell door, never touching him and never taking his vital signs,” then failed to send Davis to the hospital and gave him the wrong medication, the lawsuit claims. “Any of the 19 individual defendants could have saved Mr. Davis’ life by treating him with basic humanity and sending him to the hospital … His death was entirely preventable.”

Davis described as ‘acting more and more bizarre’

The lawsuit specifically alleges that on March 12, two days after Davis began serving his jail sentence, Davis was visibly hallucinating and complaining of invisible bugs crawling all over his cell. His condition allegedly worsened over the next two days and on the morning of March 14, Davis was seen by Christian Junker, a physician’s assistant who provided medical services for jail inmates, according to the lawsuit.

Junker allegedly spoke to Davis through the food-port of his cell door for four minutes, then wrote in his notes that Davis was “tremulous, complaining of seeing bugs (and) acting more and more bizarre … His story does not completely make sense as he says he has been working every day, including finishing a shift right before I evaluated him, and that he last drank one week ago, and then one hour ago upon repeat questioning. He does not seem to be fully oriented. I believe this is due to withdrawal.”

The lawsuit alleges Davis was then prescribed the drug Librium, commonly used to treat moderate alcohol withdrawal symptoms, although the lawsuit claims that because Davis was at the peak of severe withdrawal, the drug “was too little, too late.”

Shortly after 6 p.m. that day, jailers allegedly found Davis lying on the floor of his cell, shaking and urinating on himself. “The officers stood around and observed Mr. Davis,” the lawsuit alleges. “No one touched Mr. Davis, helped him sit up, checked to see if he’d hit his head, or took his vitals.”

The staff eventually summoned an ambulance to take Davis to the hospital, by which time he was unresponsive, had a very weak pulse and was struggling to breathe, the lawsuit alleges. The jail staff allegedly pulled Davis into a hallway, laid him on his back, removed his shirt, and then began performing chest compressions on him while waiting for paramedics.

On March 19, Davis died at an area hospital, with the cause of death listed as complications of alcohol withdrawal. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for negligence, deliberate indifference to a serious medical need and dependent adult abuse.

In addition to the county, the lawsuit names as defendants Junker, Sheriff Brad Kunkel, and county sheriff’s office employees Brett Stafford, Ryan Quiles, Lucas Moore, Andrew Mascher, John Hanna, Rebecca Simon, Joseph Voyles, Kelsey Wulfekuhle, Caleb Kempema, Courtney Rust, Becky Moses, Robert Gibson, Nicholas Feeley, Reece Hoffman, Steve Nash, Cierra Lacina and Josh Rice.

The county has yet to file a response to the lawsuit.