Woman Mistaken For Drunk By NJ State Trooper Awarded $12.9 Million

I’m beyond grateful for all the hard work that firefighters, police officers, and first responders put in each and every day to keep our communities as safe as possible.

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With that being said, after hearing about the story of Cheryl Rhines, I can’t help but feel like maybe there needs to be a little bit more training for identifying medical emergencies.

Published reports reveal that back in 2017, Cheryl Rhines was driving on Route 78 when she was arrested by a NJ state trooper after having suffered a stroke while behind the wheel. Unfortunately, the officer that thought she was under the influence rather than in the middle of a medical emergency. Sources say Rhines had puke on her face and couldn’t thoroughly respond to questioning. She was also displaying issues related to impaired motor skills, which allegedly led the trooper to believe she was intoxicated when she actually pulled over after having a stroke just 30 minutes prior.

She didn’t receive the medical attention she needed, was arrested and detained, only for people to eventually realize the severity of the situation. Rhines was taken to the hospital, but by then it was too late. She had suffered permanent brain damage.

She was awarded $12.9 million in damages as a result of the trooper failing to realize the medical emergency which exasperated her injuries. A jury decided that due to the failure in judgement on behalf of the NJ State Police, Rhines deserved to be compensated for her suffering and medical expenses, among other bills.

Better Police Training Needed?

This leads me to wonder whether or not it’s necessary for all first responders to receive more in-depth training to correctly identify certain medical conditions.

If this trooper was able to correctly identify the situation, both the wrongful arrest and the decline of her medical state could have been avoided altogether.

Paying out roughly $13 million has got to be a hard lesson learned for the organization. Hopefully, this whole event will be the catalyst for more medical training to be implemented among all of NJ’s first responder academies.