The family of a Collin County man who was incarcerated in the Denton County jail claims he did not receive appropriate medical treatment while in custody, The Dallas Morning News reports.
Gregory Corley was involved in a motorcycle crash in 2019, and a stent had to be inserted in his arm, according to his father, Jeff Corley. The injury affected his shoulder so much that his arm was paralyzed. He was able to move his elbow and fingers after years of physical therapy and rehab.
However, Jeff said the 33-year-old’s arm worsened when he got arrested on February 15 and was put in Denton County jail.
Gregory Corley was indicted on one count of unlawful possession of a firearm and one count of possession of a controlled substance in 2020. He was booked into the Denton County jail; however, he was released on bond. While out on bond, he failed to appear in court, leading to a warrant being issued for his arrest.
Corley’s family claimed he asked his arresting officers not to handcuff him with his arms behind his back, but that he was ignored. He had requested that his hands be cuffed in front of his body out of fear that having his arms behind his back could disrupt circulation and damage the stent that had been placed in his right arm near his armpit.
Per Denton Record-Chronicle, Corley claimed he was in handcuffs for over two hours as the agent transporting him to the sheriff’s office stopped at a Popeye’s to get food.
After Corley was put in jail, he reportedly began to lose feeling in his injured arm, which became swollen and turned purple. According to Corley, he was not given medical attention until weeks after complaining about his arm’s condition.
When a nurse saw him and had him sent to a hospital, doctors found the stent in his arm had collapsed and was occluded by a clot. The doctors referred him to Dallas’ UT Southwestern Medical Center for a repair of the stent.
However, Corley claims he was not allowed follow-up treatment for several more weeks, and while he waited for treatment, his arm became infected, and the tissue started to decompose. When he was later taken to the hospital, he was told that amputation was the only long-term solution. But to temporarily restore blood flow to his arm, he received surgery for a carotid bypass.
According to Corley’s father, a surgeon at the hospital said that the situation could have been fatal had it taken longer for him to seek medical care. He was also told that his arm could have been saved if he had been brought in earlier.
Jeff Corley, who said he was afraid for his son’s life, began to reach out to activists and jail reform groups, who helped the Corleys seek the attention of the sheriff’s office.
Last week, Gregory Corley was released from the Denton County jail on a personal recognizance bond and transferred to the Collin County jail. His outstanding charges remain.
Gregory Corley told the Record-Chronicle while he was still at the Denton County jail that his complaint is not a ploy for him to be free of his charges.
“There’s no way you can try to tell me that any of my charges or anything I’ve ever done in my life led up to me deserving to lose my right arm,” he said.
The DMN says Gregory’s family wants Denton County to take responsibility and pay for his medical bills.
In response to the accusations, Denton County Sheriff’s Office Assistant Chief Deputy Douglas Lee said Corley was not arrested by the sheriff’s office but by a bounty hunter.
According to the Denton Record-Chronicle, Gregory was arrested by a bond enforcement agent with AA Atlas Bail Bonds Agency.
Lee added that Corley’s handcuffs were removed as soon as he was brought into the jail.
The deputy further said Denton County Public Health could answer questions regarding Gregory’s medical treatment. However, the DMN reports that a spokesperson for the department declined to specifically address Gregory’s matter due to privacy and safety reasons.
The spokesperson, Flory Garcia-Camey, did assert that all inmates in the Denton County jail are given “continuous access to care and unimpeded access to specialty care if necessary.”
