The young detainee who appears to have died of a ruptured appendix and infection began showing serious medical issues in the city jails as long as three days before he collapsed on Rikers Island and was rushed to the hospital, the Daily News has learned.
Ariel Quidone, 20, collapsed March 13 at the Robert N. Davoren Center and was taken by medics in grave condition to Elmhurst Hospital where he needed to be revived 14 times before he died March 15.
But on March 10, three days after he entered the jail system after being arrested on robbery charges, he was already throwing up and exhibiting extreme distress. Yet, he was not taken to the hospital at that point.
Scott Rynecki, the Quidone family’s lawyer, said the sequence, which is based on information he obtained through sources familiar with the case, raises serious questions. Doctors told the family he suffered a burst appendix and had a serious infection, though the official cause of death has yet to be determined.
“People don’t die from an appendix attack if they receive the proper care,” Rynecki said. “The signs were there. He should have been taken to the clinic and then the hospital. The fact he was constantly vomiting and showing signs of fever indicated he needed immediate care.”
Two days after first showing signs of distress, on March 12, Quidone had a scheduled court appearance in Manhattan. As his family waited for him in the courtroom, he never appeared because — according to sources — he was vomiting and in serious discomfort that day as well, the sources said. He was actually loaded onto a bus anyway, but the bus was turned around and returned to the Davoren Center because of his medical distress, the sources said.
Once again, he was not transported to the hospital.
As a takeover of the jails by a court-appointed receiver looms in the backdrop, medical care on Rikers Island has been an ongoing issue. The city was sued in Bronx Supreme Court in 2021 over the thousands of medical appointments that are missed each month by detainees. The plaintiffs in that case have since filed three motions for contempt of court against the city for allegedly violating court orders in failing to fix the problems.
Meanwhile, breakdowns in provision of medical care sometimes attributed to a lack of communication between the Correction Department nor Correctional Health Services have been reported to contribute to some of the jail deaths since 2021. The Vera Institute in a recent report called medical neglect “common” in the jails.
Neither the Correction Department nor Correctional Health Services, which runs medical care in the jails, would comment or answer questions the death, citing ongoing investigations.
CHS also cited “patient health privacy concerns,” though Quidone’s family has openly discussed details of his death.
Quidone’s death was one of six in-custody deaths tied to city jails since Feb. 24. Four of the deaths involved Correction Department custody – two in Rikers Island jails, and one in a Manhattan Criminal Court holding pen, and Quidone’s at Elmhurst. In Quidone’s case, Adams administration officials argue that his death was not technically “in-custody” because he had been released at Elmhurst Hospital prior to dying.
His family, who were preparing Friday for his wake and funeral, would disagree.
“We want answers and we are angry,” said his sister, Kaylin Quidone March 18. “He was a healthy 20-year-old kid who had no medical conditions that we were aware of. A healthy kid. Gone in nine days.”
The other two were men who died were in NYPD custody as they had been arrested, but not arraigned. One died in holding at the Manhattan court, the other in a Brooklyn criminal court holding pen.
Quidone, who grew up in the Vladeck Houses on the Lower East Side, was arrested on two robbery charges March 6 and entered the jails March 7.
According to Johns Hopkins, the onset of acute appendicitis can span 24 to 72 hours. If caught in time, the mortality rate from appendicitis is very low – .02% to .08%, as reported by Columbia University/New York Presbyterian Medical Center. In Quidone’s case, according to the sources, his symptoms became apparent on March 10 and March 12 before collapsing on March 13,.
A Board of Correction death report obtained by The News Friday offers a detailed chronology of what happened March 13, the day he was taken to the hospital.
The report states Quidone “suddenly became unwell” that morning. At 9:27 a.m. and 10:36 a.m., he left his cell to vomit into a garbage can.
No medical call was made at that point, the BOC report states. But a CHS staffer gave him medication of some kind. A mental health staffer spoke to him just after noon for five minutes.
About 2:30 p.m., a CHS social worker spoke with Quidone. Just over an hour later, he became unresponsive and uniformed and medical staff tried to revive him. Medics arrived at some unspecified point, put him on a stretcher and took him to Elmhurst Hospital.
The report said security video showed staff used CPR, Narcan, a defibrillator, an oxygen tank, intravenous fluids and a LUCAS device, which is a mechanical chest compression system used when someone is having a heart attack.
The report notes DOC’s Central Operations Desk reported Quidone “departed the facility alert and breathing.” The video footage, however, told a different story. “Board staff’s review of the video footage noted otherwise – Mr. Quidone did not appear to regain consciousness,” the BOC report said.
The BOC report also said officers did not contact medical staff when they first observed him vomiting on the morning of March 13.
But the BOC report does not contain any of the information reported in this story about Quidone’s medical distress in the days previous to March 13.
The city Medical Examiner has yet to establish the official cause of death in Quidone’s case or in any of the other five in-custody deaths over the past five weeks.
A spokeswoman for the ME’s office did not reply to an email from The News Thursday.
