Man dies in Jail from Untreated Diabetes

[berni_mccoy]

Tragic:

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S244714.shtml?cat=1

ST. PAUL (AP) - When Randy Gallemeyer's mother heard her son had been arrested for riding a bicycle while drunk, she said she knew she had to make sure he got his insulin while he was held in the Ramsey County Jail.
Nora Gallmeyer said she explained to officers over the phone that it was critical that he treat his diabetes. She said she hand-delivered the medical supplies he needed to the county jail.
Randy, 46, was arrested on Friday, Oct. 19. On the following Sunday morning, jailers found him dying in his cell. Doctors at Regions Hospital pronounced him dead on Oct. 22. The medical examiner ruled he died of natural causes.
Nora Gallmeyer and her husband, Bernie, blamed the jailers for their son's death. They said they were told by an attending physician at Regions Hospital that their son was brain-dead upon arrival, with blood-glucose levels at a lethal high.

His blood sugar reached 1200 before he died.

The Jail and the Hospital are both at fault.

[mopinko]

1. drinking and diabetes

i have a diabetic friend that is having some serious trouble with alcohol. just how bad is it? how does it work?

[Lurking Dem]

2. Usually the risk with type 1

is LOW blood sugar, not high.

If you are drinking high carb content stuff - beer or sugar laden mixed drinks - you'll spike high on the front end of the evening. But eventually, alcohol reduces the ability of the liver to secrete stored glucose and you can bottom out rather heinously in the wee hours of the morning.

If he was not given his insulin, he may have yo-yo'd in a bad way - gotten low until the alcohol got out of his liver, then his body dumped all the stored sugar he had to compensate and there was no insulin there to counteract it.

Before insulin, diabetes was treated with 500 calories a day of blood sausage and all the red wine you could hold. Diabetics were forever associated with "drunks" after that, but many were able to stay alive until the discovery of insulin.

I have actually used red wine in a pinch to help lower my blood glucose or to enable me to eat something I ordinarily wouldn't be able to - like pizza.