CLEVELAND — Newly released videos and records raise more questions about how life and death emergencies are handled inside the Cuyahoga County jail.
According to county records, Jennifer Wade was found unresponsive and naked inside her cell in the jail’s mental health unit on Feb. 23, 2025.
According to a report on the incident, a corrections officer noticed Wade in the same position on the floor of her cell just before 4 a.m.
The officer wrote that she called Wade’s name and believed “I saw movement.”
About nine minutes later, two officers walked to Wade’s door, called a nurse and said Wade may have been pretending to be unconscious.
According to a county report, Wade had a history of acting unconscious or sleeping when she wasn’t.
Records show the nurse arrived three minutes later, entered Wade’s cell and called for additional help.
On the body camera video, a nurse is heard asking for help rolling Wade over.
“She’s just not responding right,” the nurse told officers.
One minute later, someone is heard on the recording saying Wade is “ice cold.”
Officers and nurses look for a pulse.
“I don’t feel one,” someone said.
“Something’s not right,” said someone else.
Video showed that 10 minutes after corrections officers found Wade, the jail’s master control was notified to call 911.
“I can’t feel a pulse,” someone said on the body cam recording. “I don’t know if it’s because she’s so cold.”
Despite not having a pulse, a county timeline of events showed it took more than 15 minutes from the time Wade was found until she received chest compressions.
The 41-year-old was rushed to the hospital but died just after 5 a.m.
Wade’s death came one month after a joint News 5, Marshall Project-Cleveland investigation raised questions about the length of time it took jail staff to begin CPR.
RELATED: ‘Nobody’s trying to help him’: Deaths in Cuyahoga County Jail intensify scrutiny
In the 2023 death of Fred Maynard and the 2024 death of Glen Williams Jr. video showed it took nine minutes before the men received CPR.
Too long, emergency response expert Eric Jaeger said.
"We know that any gap in CPR longer than 10 seconds is potentially disastrous for a patient,” said Jaeger.
Records show Wade had been in jail since September, charged with harassment by an inmate stemming from an incident at Marymount Hospital nearly two months earlier.
A county report showed she bounced between mental health treatment, the jail and hospital emergency departments because of what the county called “change in mental status and chest pain.”
An autopsy found she died of heart failure.
Following Wade’s death, an associated warden at the jail wrote that there was a need for training for both jailers and medical staff on how to address medical emergencies.
A county report following Wade’s death found four different areas of potential improvement.
Among them, the need for immediate vital checks in a medical emergency, scenario-based medical emergency training to improve skills and response more effectively and requiring staff to remain with someone during medical emergencies.
A county spokesperson has not responded to questions asking if those improvements have been implemented in the jail.
