A former Jackson County Detention Center inmate will be awarded $50,000 from the county.
Megon Riedel and her attorney, Gilliam Wilcox with the American Civil Liberties Union, said on Wednesday that they're happy with the settlement, adding that it's not just about the money.
"It's about not having somebody else go through the same thing," Riedel said. "I could've lost my baby."
In 2012, Riedel was an inmate at the facility. She was pregnant at the time of her incarceration.
When Riedel sat down with the 41 Action News Investigators in October, she told us that on the day she was supposed to be transferred to another facility, she went into labor. Instead of getting the medical attention she needed, she said the guards drove her 200 miles to the other facility, located in another state.
"The whole time I was thinking, 'Is my baby going to be OK? It was scary. It hurt a lot," Riedel said.
Four years later, Riedel says she's happy with the settlement, mostly because the county has agreed to put new policies and procedures into place so that what happened to her doesn't happen to anyone else.
"I feel like I changed some things - I made a difference in many people's lives," Riedel said. "It makes me feel good."
Brenda Hill, Jackson County spokeswoman, said the county doesn't have specifics on their plans to implement new procedures, but that they're working with the ACLU.
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