An Oregon man died less than an hour after he was discharged from a local hospital by doctors who claimed there was ‘no medical reason’ for him to be there anymore.
On December 12, 26-year-old Jean Descamps sat slumped in a hospital bed at Providence Milwaukie Hospital. His gaunt legs were covered in scabs and sores, and he was nearly unresponsive.
The hospital had called local police that night to remove the man after he refused to leave when offered a ride to a homeless shelter.
Bodycam footage released Friday shows police walking into the hospital room, helping Descamps into a wheelchair and trundling him outside into a police cruiser.
Less than hour later, he was dead.
Jean Descamps, 26, lay in a hospital bed at Providence Milwaukie Hospital in Oregon the night of December 12
Medical staff ordered police to take the young man, who was covered in scabs and sores, out of the hospital after he refused to leave
Staff claimed they provided Descamps with overdose-reversal medication, arranged for him to go to a homeless shelter and called a cab, but he did not budge
‘There is no medical reason for him to be here anymore, and it’s all behavioral,’ one staff member can be heard telling officers.
Descamps is showing signs of ‘failure to thrive,’ medical staff explain, a term most often used to reference children who do not gain weight at a healthy rate.
Staff tell police they provided Descamps with the overdose-reversal medication Narcan, arranged for him to go to a shelter and called a cab, but he refused to leave.
The man does little more than groan at various points in the nearly two hours of footage released by the police department.
Two officers pin the man’s arms over his head while they affix handcuffs to his limp wrists. They gingerly pick him up and place him in a wheelchair.
They then wheel him to a police car parked outside and lift him into the back seat as his head lolls forward.
‘Do you at all feel comfortable with anything that is going on right now?’ one officer asks.
‘No,’ another responds.
Despite his unresponsive state, staff told police there was ‘no medical reason’ for him to be there anymore and diagnosed him with ‘failure to thrive,’ which is usually used to describe children who fail to gain weight
Descamps does little more than moan and groan in the nearly two hours of bodycam footage released by the Milwaukie Police Department Friday
Officers learned that Descamps had outstanding warrants for his arrest, but the country jail refused to accept him as he was unable to care for himself
Officers place a blanket on Descamps while trying to figure out where they will take him.
As the 26-year-old has active arrest warrants, officers check if they could take him to jail. But the county jail won’t accept him, seeing as he cannot care for himself.
Police decide to transport Descamps to Unity Behavioral Health Hospital in Portland.
As an officer returns to the emergency department for his discharge papers, a police supervisor asks why the unresponsive man is being released, as he ‘can’t be on his own.’
‘We have no place to take him,’ the supervisor says.
‘He is doing it electively. He walked in here,’ a staff member responds.
The supervisor is told Descamps had refused a cab and ‘wanted to stay here all night. So that’s how it went for him.’
‘It’s not really a medical problem,’ an employee says.
‘It’s not a police problem, either,’ the police supervisor retorts.
The officers decide to put Descamps on a peace officer hold, which allows police to escort a person to a medical facility against their will if the officer has probable cause to believe the person is a danger to himself or others.
They depart the hospital before 11 pm and drive to the psychiatric emergency department at Unity Behavioral Health.
When police told hospital staff that they had nowhere to take him, an employee responded: ‘It’s not really a medical problem’
Officers handcuffed the man’s wrists and placed him in a wheelchair before trundling him out to a parked police car
In the footage Descamps barely appears conscious as his head lolls forward
An officer tells a hospital employee Descamps is in ‘bad shape’ and unable to walk. Police are instructed to back the car into the ambulance bay.
After the car draws to a halt around 11:04 pm, an officer pulls on gloves. ‘Hey, Jean, they’re going to come get you, all right?’ he shouts through the rear passenger side window.
After calling the man’s name several times and not getting a response, one officer can be heard asking another, ‘Do you see his chest rise?’
At 11:07 pm, Officer Timothy Cleary opens the door and feels for a pulse. ‘Boy, I don’t know. I don’t know. Look at his eyes,’ he says.
Cleary and Officer Bradley Walther pull Descamps from the car and lay him on the pavement. After removing his handcuffs, they take turns administering CPR.
Medical staff arrive and take over with a defibrillator but Descamps is pronounced dead at the scene.
‘I’ve been saying for years, it’s a matter of time before they refuse to do care and make us do something,’ one officer tells an ambulance medic. ‘That guy does not need to be dead right now. Their mindset there is, “Oh, it’s just another tweaker.”‘
Emergency medical staff direct officers to call an ambulance for medical transport from one hospital to the next next time they are in a similar situation.
One officer explains that Providence refused to re-admit the man. ‘I mean he is not verbal, he is not talking, he has got an involuntary drool, and they are like, nope, there is nothing wrong with him,’ he says.
EMS tells the officers they ‘did everything right.’
Officers transported Descamps to Unity Behavioral Health Hospital in Portland, but he fell unconscious in the back of the car and was later pronounced dead
‘That guy does not to be dead right now,’ one officer could be heard saying. ‘Their mindset there is, “Oh, it’s just another tweaker”‘
After the footage was released, Providence issued a statement in which the hospital promised to ‘do better.’
‘Providence is sorry about the death of Jean Descamps, and we extend our apologies and sympathy to his family and friends for their loss. In this case, we fell short of our goal of providing safe, reliable, compassionate care to our patient,’ it began.
‘The Milwaukie Police Department video is difficult to watch, and Providence is committed to doing all we can to learn from this and improve our response to our most vulnerable patients.’
According to the statement, the hospital began a ‘thorough internal review’ in conjunction with the organization that supplies its emergency doctors as well as the Oregon Health Authority.
‘Finally, on behalf of all our caregivers at Providence Milwaukie, we give you our promise: We will do better,’ the statement finished.
Descamps likely died of a ‘drug overdose with contributing natural causes,’ according to the medical examiner’s preliminary finding.
According to a memo from the Multnomah County prosecutor, Descamps was taken by ambulance to the hospital after he refused to get off the train.
He told Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office deputies, who responded, that he had used drugs and was in pain. He was covered in feces.
At the hospital, Descamps showered, ate and was administered Narcan. Medical records describe Descamps as ‘perfectly pleasant’ and say he was responsive until staff tried to discharge him and he fell out of a wheelchair.
Records show he was given ‘a little Narcan’ for possible ‘mild opioid intoxication,’ but ‘notably don’t include any indication that toxicology testing was completed or even ordered,’ the prosecutor’s office wrote.
Local advocates insist his death was preventable.
‘The only safe place for Jean in that moment was the hospital bed that he was laying in,’ Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, told KPIC.
Jones also serves as co-chair of the legislative task force on hospital discharges. This group was organized after Senate Bill 1076, which would have offered protections for homeless patients, failed to pass committee during the 2023 legislative session.
Those most impacted, of course, are the man’s family members.
‘I’m livid,’ Desiree Descamps told The Oregonian. She said her son had been living on the streets.
‘It seemed like he needed serious medical help,’ she continued. ‘Just the drugs got ahold of him, and the streets got ahold of him. I thought he would get help. It turned out not to be the case.’
The family has obtained a lawyer.
Providence did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
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