The family of a Colorado woman who passed away in jail has initiated a wrongful death lawsuit, alleging that the jail’s medical staff disregarded a deadly allergic reaction she suffered.

Ashley Raisbeck, aged 27, was serving a brief sentence after a plea agreement in December 2023 during a period of drug withdrawal. The lawsuit, reviewed by Law&Crime, states that medical personnel at the Jefferson County Detention Center in Golden, Colorado, began treating her for withdrawal symptoms and observed sores on her body. Part of her treatment included antibiotics, but Raisbeck informed the staff of her penicillin allergy, which was recorded in her medical files.

However, the lawsuit alleges that despite this warning, the medical team administered a drug related to the very allergy she had disclosed.

The lawsuit implicates several Jefferson County officials, the county sheriff’s office, and 11 healthcare workers, accusing them of contributing to Raisbeck’s death on December 16, 2023. She had been arrested three days earlier and jailed in Jefferson County after pleading guilty to false reporting. Given her history of drug addiction, the medical staff placed her on a detox regimen.

The legal claim indicates that Raisbeck had a history of minor offenses and had previously reported allergies to penicillin, Vicodin, and codeine. Upon her latest jail admission, a nurse identified sores on her face, arms, and legs during her medical evaluation. In addition to detox measures, another nurse prescribed cephalexin, known commercially as Keflex, a synthetic penicillin variant, which should not be given to patients with a known allergy to penicillin.

Raisbeck had refused to take Keflex during a previous stint in jail due to her allergy, which was noted in her medical records. She took a different antibiotic instead.

The lawsuit stated that according to medical records from her December 2023 visit, Raisbeck was given Keflex seven times while she was in custody. She began having increasingly severe gastrointestinal reactions and dropping blood pressure, a symptom that does not normally occur during withdrawal and is considered a “red flag” that requires further medical treatment. According to the lawsuit, the nurse who noticed this symptom “failed to notify anyone.”

Similarly, Raisbeck experienced a pulse rate higher than 120, another red flag that was allegedly ignored. As her symptoms worsened, nurses still did not seek further medical attention. By the time Raisbeck had her sixth dose of Keflex, she started experiencing muscle cramps and spasms, both symptoms of shock. A nurse told her to “drink water” despite her inability to keep anything down.

On the morning of Dec. 16, 2023, a nurse and a sheriff’s deputy went to Raisbeck’s cell and found her “lethargic and unresponsive.” The nurse could not find a pulse, and her blood pressure was at a level “known to be incompatible with life.” Both the nurse and deputy left Raisbeck in her cell alone for another hour while she was in the “final stages of anaphylactic shock.” The nurse returned and gave Raisbeck a seventh dose of Keflex.

The lawsuit said that this was when the nurse and deputy loaded Raisbeck into a wheelchair, where she lost consciousness. The deputy noted that Raisbeck’s “head had to be held up,” her feet dragged along the floor, and she had a “blank, glazed stare.” The same nurse then gave Raisbeck two doses of Narcan “despite no clinical indication or symptoms of opioid overdose.”

When Raisbeck arrived at the jail medical unit, medical staff administered three more doses of Narcan, still treating her as if she was “overdosing.” When another member of the staff called 911, the lawsuit said she told dispatchers it was “probably a fentanyl overdose,” adding with a chuckle, “We get a lot of those here.”

Paramedics arrived at the jail at 11:34 a.m. Raisbeck was pronounced dead at the hospital at 12:07 p.m. An autopsy cited severe dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, shock, black vomit, and “no evidence of a fentanyl overdose.” The cause of death was complications of intussusception.

Anita Springsteen, a civil rights attorney who is representing Raisbeck’s family, told local ABC affiliate KMGH that the case had been investigated by the First Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT). It stated there was “no evidence that law enforcement engaged in any criminal conduct that caused the death of Ms. Raisbeck.”

Springsteen called the CIRT investigation “inadequate,” telling KMGH, “I don’t know if the investigators had medical backgrounds, but they certainly missed the fact that Ashley was administered a medication that she was allergic to.”