Elderly Woman Jailed for Breaking Hospital's COVID Rules by Refusing to Leave Ailing Daughter's Bedside
A 70-year-old Florida woman was jailed because she put her daughter ahead of COVID-19 rules.
Lynn Savage ran afoul of hospital edicts after her daughter Amber was recovering from brain surgery at UF Health North in Jacksonville. When she refused to leave her daughter’s side, she was arrested and jailed.
“I stand by my actions 100 percent. I am not sorry that I made them take me out of there in handcuffs,” Savage said, according to WJAX-TV.
“I stand by my actions 100 percent. I am not sorry that I made them take me out of there in handcuffs,” explains Lynn Savage. https://t.co/hp3VKktOAb
— ActionNewsJax (@ActionNewsJax) October 12, 2021
“I could not in good conscience and good heart leave her bedside not knowing how she was going to make it through the night voluntarily,” she said.
Savage had been at the hospital since 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 4, the day she was arrested. Her daughter was partially paralyzed after a stroke and not able to speak. She noted that a doctor needed her to help calm her daughter after the surgery took place.
“As soon as I approached the bedside, she was fine. With all these people talking and all these things going on and she doesn’t understand it and not being able to talk, she just was frantic,” she said.
Then came the end of visiting hours and the beginning of a confrontation.
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“The nurse said that the visiting hours were over at seven and I had to leave and I said I’m not going to leave. I want to stay here with my daughter. Can you call the doctor because the doctor is the one that wanted me here with her? And she said no that they couldn’t do that that COVID rules said that visiting hours were over at seven,” Savage said.
She resisted until deputies with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office came to take her away.
“The sheriff’s office came up. They were also very polite. They kept trying to get me to leave and I said I’m not leaving; I’m not going to leave my daughter’s side,” she said.
A sheriff’s office report said Savage was taken away about 10 p.m. She said she spent about a day in jail.
“Not an experience that I would ever want to do again for the rest of my life not ever,” she said. “It was horrible. It was filthy, it was more like an insane asylum with the women screaming and hollering and banging on bars and banging on walls.
“It was just terrifying, but I would rather be there than know that I had walked away from my daughter.”
Savage faces a court hearing on her trespassing charge on Oct. 20.
Her daughter remains in recovery from surgery.
The hospital issued a statement to WJAX.
“Due to federal HIPAA privacy laws, we cannot comment on inquiries about specific patients,” it said.
“However, UF Health Jacksonville is dedicated to the well-being and safety of everyone who visits our facilities, especially patients and their families. Like health care organizations throughout the country, we have put policies in place to protect everyone from the COVID-19 virus, including patients, visitors and staff.
“Information about visitation limitations are placed in areas visible to those entering our facilities.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
