A Florida woman is dead after she was admitted to a hospital to have a crack pipe removed from her vagina, Polk County sheriffs told the Ledger of Lakeland.
April Rollison, of Sebring, was being booked at the Polk County Jail after her Dec. 16 arrest on drug charges when a body scan detected a glass crack pipe inside the 31-year-old woman, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office.
Police also found a prescription pill bottle inside Rollison. She was transported to Bartow Regional Medical Center to have the objects removed.
At the hospital, Rollison asked to use the bathroom. A nurse went to retrieve a bedpan and a deputy stepped behind a curtain. During that moment alone, it is believed Rollison removed the pill bottle from her vagina and ingested some of the two grams of crack cocaine that was inside.
"While the nurse was getting the bedpan...she was able to remove it from her personal area," Polk County Sheriff's Office spokesman Scott Wilder told the Ledger of Lakeland.
Wilder said the deputy and nurse later found the pill bottle and detected cocaine on the hospital floor. Hospital staff removed the pipe from Rollison and she was returned to the jail for booking.
But during processing Rollison fell ill and was taken back to the hospital in critical condition. She died a week later on Monday morning.
Her cause of death was not immediately clear, but tests showed she had taken methamphetamine, amphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, police told the newspaper. The Polk County Medical Examiner is expected to perform an autopsy.
The State Attorney's Office is to conduct an independent investigation into Rollison's death, as is required when someone dies while in the custody of the sheriff's office.
