WATCH: Shocking footage shows a Utah nurse being arrested for refusing to give a patient's blood to police pic.twitter.com/tVcc2WUBoi
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 1, 2017
A NURSE IN Utah was chased and grabbed by a police officer, before she was handcuffed and arrested for refusing to give over a patient’s blood sample.
Bodycam footage from two angles shows the incident, with the police officer audibly saying “we’re done, you’re under arrest” as a struggle ensued and the woman screamed.
The footage shows the officer grabbing hold of the nurse and dragging her outside.
“Please sir, you’re hurting me,” she said.
“Then walk,” the officer replied.
She later shouts “I did nothing wrong”.
The incident happened on 26 July, at Salt Lake City hospital, NBC reports. She was not charged with any crime.
Later identified as Alex Wubbels, the nurse held a press conference about the incident yesterday.
She said: “I feel betrayed. I feel angry. I feel a lot of things.
And I am still confused. I’m a health care worker. The only job I have is to keep my patients safe.
The bodycam footage shows the police officer becoming irritable, and later aggressive, as Wubbels tries to explain that she couldn’t withdraw blood from an unconscious patient because it was not hospital policy.
She said that patient consent or a police warrant were needed in order to take a blood sample.
The Salt Lake police department had begun an investigation into the incident, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
It is believed that the officers were sent to get a blood sample from an individual involved in a road crash, to ascertain if that person had drunk alcohol or taken drugs prior to getting behind the wheel.
“This was not peaceful,” Wubbels said. “This was not even civil.
So at the very least, there needs to be some significant discussion about what their duties are to society.
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