PRINCETON — The Gibson County Jail is experiencing a severe outbreak of COVID-19.
Approximately 45 of the 95 inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus, Gibson County Sheriff Tim Bottoms said Wednesday.
All inmates were tested Tuesday after some began showing symptoms, according to Bottoms. Results came back that same day.
"Apparently, some of them started showing symptoms so the nurse came to me, and we decided to go ahead and test them, and of course that's what it resulted in," Bottoms said.
Bottoms initially said he didn't know when inmates first became symptomatic, but Gibson County attorney Jason Spindler later said it was also Tuesday.
"After the nurse brought it to the sheriff's attention, he nearly immediately said, 'We need to react to this,' so that's when the decision was made to do a global screening of everyone," Spindler said.
Bottoms said work was underway to notify close contacts, but one Evansville attorney who was recently in the jail was notified by a colleague instead.
Shaunda Lynch, a partner and criminal defense attorney at Foster, O'Daniel, Hambidge & Lynch, said she traveled to the jail Monday afternoon for a deposition.
The deponent had been transported from another facility last week, Lynch said, and had tested negative for COVID-19 in advance.
"In the middle of our deposition, the deponent became physically ill and had stated that they had been 'sick all day,'" she said. "After the deponent became ill, we ceased the deposition and left the building... We assumed it was nerves or a stomach bug."
That deponent later tested positive for COVID-19, Lynch said, and on Wednesday afternoon, another attorney contacted her, informing her of the outbreak.
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"One of that attorney's clients had been complaining for several days of being sick and allegedly being refused a COVID test," she said, "and that client's father allegedly also had contacted this attorney to say that they were concerned about the inmate."
She called Bottoms for confirmation but the exchange was "very unprofessional."
He would only confirm the outbreak and that he just learned of it Tuesday, according to Lynch. She didn't believe him, and he declined to answer any additional questions or provide a sincere apology, even when Lynch told him her exposure meant she may not be able to visit a sick relative.
"Well gee lady, I'm sorry you can't get on a plane," he reportedly said.
"When I said, 'No, I need more than that,'" Lynch recalled, "he said, 'Lady, I ain't impressed with you,' and hung up on me."
Spindler told the Courier & Press that, on his advice, Bottoms would not comment on his alleged remarks to Lynch. Spindler also said he didn't have enough information to respond to the allegation that an inmate was previously denied a COVID-19 test.
The jail's outbreak doesn't yet appear to be reflected on the Indiana State Department of Health's COVID-19 dashboard, which reported only four new COVID-19 cases in Gibson County Wednesday and five Thursday.
C&P asked Bottoms what precautions the jail was taking to prevent the spread of the virus.
"As best we could do here," he said, declining to name specific examples. "The best we could do."
Lynch said she has avoided the jail since the start of the pandemic because she's heard the sheriff's office hadn't put in place significant precautions. She said she was concerned ahead of Monday's deposition.
"I have now been exposed," she said. "My family has now been exposed. I may not be able to travel to Arizona to be with my sick mother, and I'm livid."