This is midday edition, Maureen Cavanaugh. Are the San Diego County protocols and at preventing deaths in county jails? The number of suicides and a recent death due to mental illness are raising serious questions. Freelance reporter Kelly Davis has been following the issue of inmate deaths for several years most recently, she reported for the San Diego Union Tribune on the death of moving Nuñez at San Diego Central jail. Welcome to the program . Tell us about Rubin Nuñez, who was he and why was he at the San Diego Central Dale . Rubin was a ¬46 man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was a teenager. I talked to his mom. Most of the time, he was stable. He was on medication. He was living in a board and care. In May 2014, he decided to stop taking his medication. He became homeless. He acted out and ended up throwing a bottle through a car window and entered someone. He was arrested and found incompetent to stand trial due to his mental illness. He was sent to Penn State Hospital and San Bernardino. It's an inpatient psychiatric facility. The judge ordered that he be involuntarily medicated. The problem with that order is that it expired after year and so in August, 2015, Rubin Nuñez had to come back to San Diego for a court hearing to see if that medication order could be extended . He apparently suffered from a mental condition that compelled him to drink huge amounts of water. Can you tell us a little bit about that question marks this is something that folks that I've talked to about this story can't wrap their heads around this, it's called psychogenic water intoxication or psychogenic polydipsia. It's not uncommon in folks with severe mental illness. It just causes this unquenchable thirst. They will just continuously drink water. No one is quite sure what is going on in their brains that is causing this. But they will drink water to a point of making themselves sick or sometimes as in Rubin's case to the point of death . He was house in the cell in a psychiatric row in the Central jail. But he did have access to running water . Yes . And that's what he died of . When he was a patent, they notice that he was drinking excess amount of water. They were constantly monitoring him. At patent I have more freedom to leave your room, go to counseling sessions. They were just monitoring him to make sure he was not speaking off and drinking too much water. They were very aware of it. I was not aware of this but the protocol for patent is when they are transferring a patient to another facility, they sent a hand a discharge summary that covers, it's very in-depth packet covers every possible diagnosis, medication, special needs for this patient that the facility that they been transferred to need so be aware of. They also have a water intoxication protocol form that they will also send ahead if they have a patient who is prone to psychogenic water intoxication. The jail should have known about him. They are able to shut off water in individual cells. But that did not happen . We do not know if the guards or jail officials were aware of this condition but they should have been. And if they were not call someone made a mistake . @Patent Café cannot call the state officials cannot discuss this issue because of medical privacy issues . You've done a lot of reporting on jailed us, how to San Diego compare with other places? I did a report with Dave Moss, San Diego had the highest mortality rate of California's Jell-O gel system. We did that story in 2000 . That I've been requesting information of inmate deaths. That is continue to escalate between 2013 and 1541 people died. We look at the inmate mortality rate and you compared San Diego's mortality rate to LA County which has a jail population three times aside, San Diego's as much higher mortality rate. LA's jails are currently under federal scrutiny for conditions . How is the Sheriff's Department reacting to your article and to the death of Rubin Nuñez. They could not comment on it because his family filed a claim which is a precursor to a lesser . Besides being a tragedy for the families, the settlements paid out for these cases, are they not costly to the county? Yes, in fact last year the county paid out $3.2 million to the family of a young man who died from complications from her when withdrawal in the vested jail in 2011. There was also a $1 million payout to a family of a 16-year-old girl who committed suicide in the juvenile detention center here . We will keep track of this. I appreciate you coming in and talking to us about it. I've been speaking with freelance reporter Kelly Davis . Thank you .
The unusual death of an inmate at San Diego Central Jail has put a spotlight on the county's jail system.
Ruben Nunez of San Diego died at the facility in August from a condition known as psychogenic polydipsia, which led him to drink an excessive amount of water and caused his death.
The case is raising questions about whether jail staff properly supervised Nunez.
Over the last two years, 41 people died in San Diego jails. That makes San Diego's jail mortality rate higher than Los Angeles, the largest jail system in California.
Kelly Davis, a freelance journalist who reported about Nunez’s case for The San Diego Union-Tribune, discusses San Diego's record on jail deaths on KPBS Midday Edition Monday.
