A 70-year-old mother and retired cop has spent the night in a Florida county jail after she refused to leave her disabled daughter’s side in hospital.
Lynn Savage, 70, spent the night in Duval County Jail in the south-eastern US state of Florida because she allegedly broke the rules regarding COVID-19 visiting hours, according to public information from the Corrections Facility available on the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office website.
Savage, who was a police deputy with the Stark County Sheriff’s Office in the US state of Ohio before she retired 20 years ago, allegedly refused to leave her daughter Amber’s side after visiting hours because her daughter is non-verbal and partially paralysed on the right side of her body after she suffered a stroke.
Amber, 45, a mum of four, was recovering from brain surgery in hospital and her mother said she could not in good conscience leave her bedside without knowing if she was going to make it through the night.
Amber was a paralegal in Jacksonville before she suffered a stroke in 2015 that rendered her non-verbal and affected the right side of her body.
She required surgery this month at the UF Health North hospital after a piece of her skull dropped and began to grow on her brain. The hospital said on its website that visiting hours, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, are strictly from 9am to 7pm.
But when she was asked to leave, her mum Lynn refused, simply stating that she could not in good conscience leave her daughter’s bedside. The arrest report states that Savage was cooperative with the arresting police officer.
Savage said on Facebook: “It is a violation of Title III of the American with Disabilities Act ADA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation (RA), and Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable care act.
“Patients with intellectual or cognitive impairments can be accompanied by a support person determined to be essential to their care.”
According to the publicly available information on the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office website, Savage was released the following day without charge and has no pending court dates.
The records state that she was arrested on 4th October for “trespassing on property” and for “defying an order to leave or endangering a property”.
Newsflash attempted to contact Savage and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office by phone to request a statement, but had not received a reply at the time of writing.
