My hero of the month is Alice Wubbles, head nurse at the University of Utah Hospital’s burn unit. Wubbles triggered the irrational wrath of police detective Jeff Payne, simply by defending her patient’s rights. The nurse politely explained why drawing blood from an unconscious patient is against hospital rules and constitutional law. No one can just walk up and stick a needle in your arm and take it. It belongs to you! The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that blood can only be drawn from drivers for probable cause, with a warrant. Additionally the patient in this case was not even under arrest.
Rather than waste time obtaining a warrant, Payne snapped. Obviously unused to women who don’t ‘respect his authority,’ this is Payne’s ‘good side’ – the one he shows when he knows a body camera is recording the event. After roughly manhandling the nurse,he handcuffed her and then forced her into an unmarked car. Wubbles sat in the car for 20 minutes, roughly the time it took Payne to realize he had no cause to arrest her.
I just feel betrayed, I feel angry, I feel a lot of things,” Wubbels said. “And I’m still confused.
On Thursday, Wubbles and her attorney called a news conference,calling on police to rethink their treatment of hospital workers, and that they had not ruled out legal action. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sam Gill hasn’t ruled it out either. On Friday he announced that he wants a criminal investigation into the incident.