Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 23, 1994 TAG: 9403230105
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
McCabe acknowledged that Jerome Walton Jr. told jail officials when he was arrested Feb. 14 that he had an appointment for the treatment that day.
But McCabe said Walton had not completed the booking process until almost 4 p.m., too late to be treated that day. He said he didn't know why Walton wasn't taken until two days later to the Tidewater Renal Dialysis Center.
By that time, Walton was in a "weakened condition and unable to walk," said a clinic employee who declined to give her name. Shortly after his arrival, he had a seizure, followed by a heart attack.
Walton was taken to DePaul Medical Center, where he died 10 days later. Cardiac arrest was listed as the primary cause of death, with kidney failure as a significant contributing factor.
"It's quite possible going that many days without treatment would cause a dialysis patient to experience cardiac arrest," said Dr. Thomas McCune, a kidney specialist and an associate of Walton's regular physician.
Walton, 28, had been a kidney patient half his life. He needed dialysis treatment three times a week.
Walton was arrested on a charge of possession of marijuana with intent to sell and for a probation violation. After his arrest, he was held in the jail's medical block, McCabe said Monday.
The sheriff said Walton was a known drug abuser who failed to follow a proper diet for someone in his medical condition.
Walton's mother, Agnes Walton, said she didn't know her son had been arrested until her daughter saw him being put into an ambulance at the dialysis clinic, where she went looking for him.
"I had told him he had gotten a postcard from his probation officer and he needed to go see her, and I had Tasha [the daughter] take him up to see her," Agnes Walton said.
"That was the last time I saw my boy alive."
Walton said she lost her father in November "and now here I've lost my son right behind him. I'm just in a daze."
In 1993, six Norfolk jail inmates died because of medical problems while in custody. McCabe, who became sheriff in January, said during his campaign against former Sheriff David Mapp that improving the jail's medical services was a primary focus.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.