Woman arrested after miscarrying at home makes shock new claims against hospital staff who called police

A woman in Ohio went into shock after having a miscarriage, resulting in her being arrested when she returned to the hospital. Now she wants justice.

Brittany Watts experienced an expectant mother’s worst nightmare after doctors told her her pregnancy was dangerous in September 2023.

But after her devastating miscarriage at home, she returned to hospital on the brink of death, where she was arrested.

Now, Watts has claimed in a new lawsuit that the hospital staff who comforted her lied by claiming to police that she knew the fetus was alive.

According to Watts’ complaint, a falsified medical report claimed that she had touched and seen the baby, but because he was not moving and she allegedly did not want him, she had placed him in a bucket behind a garbage can.

Watts was about 21 weeks pregnant when she began experiencing extreme pain and bleeding.

Doctors at St. Joseph Warren Hospital in Ohio told her she had developed a placental abruption — in which the placenta separates from the walls of the uterus before birth — putting herself and her pregnancy at risk.

Eight hours passed and she had not received any meaningful treatment or care, the lawsuit said, so she went home devastated and scared.

By morning she returned to the hospital, where she learned that her waters had broken prematurely, her cervix had dilated and an infection had developed.

“Her pregnancy was doomed, her doctor told her, and until the fetus was removed, Ms. Watts was at risk of hemorrhage, sepsis and death,” the lawsuit said.

The standard procedure at this time for someone in Watt’s condition would be to induce labor or perform a dilation and evacuation procedure to “protect the health of the pregnant woman.”

However, Watts remained ‘effectively untreated’ for another ten hours, so she returned home.

It was the next morning, on September 22, 2023, that she suffered a painful miscarriage.

‘The toilet bowl was a mess of tissue, blood and blood clots. And hidden within was the already deceased fetus weighing less than a pound, which Mrs. Watts never saw,” the lawsuit said.

It further stated that Watts heard no sound and saw no fetus nor any movement before collapsing.

Watts lay on the ground bleeding for almost an hour and then became disoriented and “thought she was going to die.”

After she tried to flush the toilet, it overflowed and she spent time cleaning it up as best she could. However, because she was not feeling well and her life was in danger, she returned to the hospital for the third time.

While waiting in her hospital bed for life-saving treatment, one of the nurses called the police and claimed Watts had committed a crime.

“The nurse rubbed my back, comforted me and told me everything was going to be OK,” Watts told her attorneys at Loevy and Loevy. “I didn’t know that nurse was the one who called the police.”

According to the complaint, hospital staff falsified allegations that Watts had given birth to a viable, live baby and left the baby in a bucket.

A medical report also stated that Watts said she saw and touched the fetus, the baby did not move or make any noise, so she placed it in a bucket behind the garbage can.

According to police, Watts was accused of giving birth at home to a baby she didn’t want, didn’t check to see if he was alive and came to the hospital without the baby.

It was further suggested that the baby may still be alive, and that Watts may have done something wrong or illegal, the complaint said.

Watts had seen four police cars arrive at her home at her home security and was told by one of the health care workers that they were arriving “as per policy” due to a biohazard.

She was later arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse, a crime for which she received a year in prison.

During the autopsy, it was determined that the fetus had died in utero, and on January 11, 2024, the jury declined to indict Watts.

“Thankfully, the evidence was ultimately reviewed by a grand jury and the truth won. The grand jury declined to file charges, instead finding that there was no probable cause to support the criminal charge,” the lawsuit said.

It further added that the prosecutor who brought the case publicly agreed that Watt’s alleged actions were not criminal.

‘[The complaint] accuses them of multiple violations of Ms. Watt’s rights, including constitutional violations, violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA), medical negligence, violations of medical privacy rights, malicious prosecution, and intentional infliction of emotional distress,” her lawyers said.

She has spoken out and talked about her case since the horrific experience CBS mornings in January 2024 that she thought she would soon be sued because of her “skin color.”

Watts previously spoke at a rally in support of her as she faced the criminal charges that drew national attention, where she told the crowd she was “not done fighting yet.”

“I don’t want what happened to me to ever happen to another woman,” Watts said.

“I’m ready to get to work making sure the laws are changed and people learn what to do for something that happens all the time.”

‘As the old saying goes, history repeats itself. “I don’t want that to happen in this case,” she said.