As part of an effort on September 19, 2022, to save the life of 55 year old Jim Hogg County Jail inmate Michael Joseph Tokos, the air ambulance arrived at the halo pad it was called to. The medics on the helicopter took over in the effort to revive Mr. Tokos. Sadly, there was no pulse and efforts ended at noon on that day. The Hebbronville, Texas, inmate was pronounced deceased. According to the results of an autopsy that was later performed, Mr. Tokos died of hypertensive arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

At Least a Dozen Deaths of Diabetic County Jail Inmates Occur in a State Outside Texas

According to an executive with the American Diabetes Association’s National Advocacy Committee, any individual with type 1 diabetes who is not provided with insulin will die within two weeks. In the state where these alleged deaths of diabetic individuals occurred, the guidelines for jails is that they have 14 days in which to examine and get the medical history of newly arrived inmates who have medical conditions. This apparently encompasses the time frame in which prescriptions can be approved.

Among the dozen diabetic inmates who allegedly died during the aforementioned period in a state outside Texas was a 31 year old who had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child. After he began to experience nausea and began vomiting, which are early signs of diabetic ketoacidosis. The man was taken to medical at the jail, and for his first two days there, he was given insulin.

After that, insulin was stopped because a drug screen came back positive for methamphetamines. One of the most common types of diabetic medication, Metformin, occasionally registers as a false positive in drug screens.

Three days after the man arrived at medical, he was pronounced deceased. An autopsy was performed, and the report stated that his blood sugar was five times higher than it should have been for a person his age. The cause of death was not formally listed as diabetic ketoacidosis, though reports show that he had common signs of the condition.

Learn more in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of this series.

This website seeks to provide resources that can be of help to Texas inmates who are now or have previously been incarcerated in a municipal or county jail in the state. Linking institutions or individuals to purported misdeeds is never intended.

–Guest Contributor