Nurse arrested for denying blood test: ‘This cop bullied me’
SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah nurse said she was scared to death when a police officer handcuffed and dragged her screaming from a hospital after she refused to allow blood to be drawn from an unconscious patient.
Alex Wubbels said Friday that the videotaped arrest, which has drawn attention amid a national conversation about police use of force, shows that bullying does not just happen in schools.
“This cop bullied me. He bullied me to the utmost extreme,” Wubbels said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And nobody stood in his way.”
A Utah prosecutor called for a criminal investigation. The Salt Lake City police chief and mayor apologized and changed department policies in line with the guidance Wubbels was following in the July 26 incident.
She said she adhered to her training and hospital protocols to protect the rights of a patient who could not speak for himself.
“You can’t just take blood if you don’t have a legitimate concern for something to be tested,” Wubbels said. “It is the most personal property I think that we can have besides our skin and bones and organs.”
Salt Lake City police Detective Jeff Payne has been suspended from the department’s blood-draw unit, but remains on duty as a detective during reviews by police and a civilian board. He did not return messages left at publicly listed phone numbers.
“I was alarmed by what I saw in the video with our officer,” Police Chief Mike Brown said.
Police body-camera video shows Wubbels, who works in the burn unit, calmly explaining that she could not take blood from a patient who had been injured in a deadly car accident, citing a recent change in law. A 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling said a blood sample cannot be taken without patient consent or a warrant.
Wubbels told Payne that a patient had to allow a blood sample to determine intoxication or be under arrest. Otherwise, she said police needed a warrant. Police did not, but Payne insisted.
The dispute ended with Payne saying, “We’re done, you’re under arrest” and pulling her outside while she screamed and said, “I’ve done nothing wrong!”
He had called his supervisor and discussed the time-sensitive blood draw for over an hour with hospital staff, police spokeswoman Christina Judd said.
“It’s not an excuse. It definitely doesn’t forgive what happened,” she said.
The detective left Wubbels in a hot police car for 20 minutes before realizing that blood had already been drawn as part of treatment, said her lawyer, Karra Porter. Wubbels was not charged.
“This has upended her worldview in a way. She just couldn’t believe this could happen,” Porter said.
Wubbels and her attorneys released the video Thursday to draw attention to what happened and call for change. She has not sued, but that could change, said another attorney, Jake Macfarlane.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said that he was concerned watching the video and called the police chief to ask for a criminal investigation.
The hospital said it’s proud of the way Wubbels handled the situation.
The patient was a victim in a car crash and Payne wanted the blood sample to show he had done nothing wrong, according to the officer’s written report.
The patient, William Gray, is a reserve police officer in Rigby, Idaho, according to the city’s police. They thanked Wubbels for protecting his rights.
Gray is a truck driver and was on the road when a pickup fleeing from authorities slammed into him and his truck burst into flames, police reports say.
Messages for the Salt Lake Police Association union were not immediately returned.