SOUTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Family members are furious and demanding answers after records show their mother was left lying on a jail floor long after a fellow inmate reported she was foaming at the mouth.
Channel 2 investigative Mark Winne obtained the records that show the woman's cellmate was so concerned she told the jail tower she thought the woman was dead.
Winne went inside the jail cell at the Fulton County Jail south annex in south Fulton County on Monday where the jail cell remained sealed off while the case is investigated.
The woman’s family just wants answers.
“I don’t know what to think every morning when I wake up. I have my mom … a vision in my head that she can’t breathe and I get sick,” daughter Akiyoshi Metts said about her mother, Rene Metts.
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Records indicate Rene Metts was known by various names, but her daughter said she, her brother and sister knew her as "my mama."
“I am furious, I am. I just cannot believe it,” Cynthia Metts told Winne.
Now they want to know why she died last month as an inmate, with a long medical history including asthma, who had been held at the Fulton County Jail's south annex on a probation violation.
“Somebody needs to answer for my mom’s death,” Akiyoshi Metts said.
Chief jailer Mark Adger said he wants to know, too, and has called in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Adger told Winne that his officers did their job, but Rene Metts' death is a key reason the sheriff's office has moved to terminate the current jail medical contractors.
“My mom was not an animal. I cannot believe this,” Cynthia Metts said.
Among the records obtained by Winne, there is what appears to be a handwritten statement from another inmate who says Rene Metts, "was breathing real hard. She kept saying she was dying and something was wrong."
The document indicates the other inmate pushed a button and a nurse came in and checked Rene, “and said nothing was wrong.”
It appears to say she left Rene, “laying on the floor foaming out the mouth and breathing.”
The document indicates the other inmate kept trying to wake Rene up, "but she didn’t move."
“They killed my mom,” son Wendell Metts.
Another document gives a timeline of what happened:
6:36 a.m. - An officer notifies a nurse that Rene complained of body pains.
6:38 a.m. - Another officer observes her on the floor with no clothes on and a nurse was called.
6:41 a.m. - A nurse checked her vitals, exited the cell and stated she would be referred to mental health.
7:14 a.m. - The other inmate says she thinks she's dead.
7:15 a.m. - Officers respond immediately.
7:17 a.m. - Medical called.
7:18 a.m. - A deputy and detention officer initiated CPR.
7:19 a.m. - Approximately 38 minutes after a nurse checked her vitals. Another nurse notifies an officer to call 911.
7:32 a.m. - A nurse stated she had a pulse.
7:34 a.m. - Union City Fire Department and EMS arrive in sally port
Winne learned the jail’s medical contract is done as a joint venture.
A statement from one of the two groups contracted for the jail’s medical services said, in part, "inmates are receiving the highest quality of services.”
The other group said “the attacks on the quality of our care are factually inaccurate.”
Those responses came from a previous story Winne reported on about the deaths.
Winne attempted to get specific responses from both groups about this story, but so far, they haven't responded.