A mom-to-be who lost her newborn baby while in custody of Miami-Dade Corrections says her child would be alive if the corrections department had done the right thing.
"By the time that I gave birth he wasn't alive, he didn't make it," Amanda Garcia told NBC 6 Thursday. "I just think it's insensitive. It's like inhumane, like why would you put somebody through that?"
The 18-year-old was excited about being a mom, snapping selfies and posting photos of the sonogram pics on social media. But Garcia says her dreams were dashed a few days ago when the baby she was naming Enrique Lazaro died at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
"The right to keep my baby safe and they didn't even give me that right," Garcia said. "They should have helped me when they could have."
Garcia received a 60-day sentence after a dispute she had with her sister at their home. She said she couldn't afford the cost of an anger management program, so 22 weeks pregnant, she chose the two-month jail term.
"All together it was about maybe $3,000, almost $4,000, which I don't have," she said. "Sixty days sounded better than 180 and spending all this money."
NBC 6 obtained Garcia's official records and didn't find anything to indicate Garcia had been in trouble before.
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Court records showed Judge Veronica del Pino told corrections that "Garcia's pregnancy has been deemed high risk" and that Garcia "provided a letter ordering bed rest and daily medication for the high-risk pregnancy."
The judge also wrote that it was "highly recommended that this defendant serve her prison sentence with all credit for time served at South Miami Hospital."
Garcia's jail records indicate the corrections department got the message. Her jail booking card says "sent 60 days at South Miami Hospital." Yet Garcia told NBC 6 that never happened.
"I had to sit in the rear lobby in TGK for three days," she said.
NBC 6 reached out to Miami-Dade Corrections for comment but haven't heard back.
Garcia says she never got any real medical attention until it was too late and after one visit to the hospital her baby didn't survive. It was her fifth day in corrections custody.
"Corrections, they neglected me, they really did. I thought I went into this situation with my paperwork and everything thinking they would accommodate my situation," she said. "You know, being an inmate obviously I am not going to get rights everyone else does but you would think I would have the rights to my health."
Garcia says the doctors at Jackson all tried to help her at the hospital but the worsening situation had gone to far. She said the judge let her out on probation after losing the child.
