WOOD COUNTY, OH (WTOL) - The Wood County Sheriff's Office is investigating the death of an inmate at the Justice Center.
During rounds Thursday morning, one of the deputies noticed Westley Dewitt was unresponsive. Despite life-saving efforts, the inmate died.
Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn says there is a protocol they have to follow in situations like this. So far, he says there are no signs of foul play.
"We have two basic investigations going on. One to see if there anything criminal, and the good news on that side is there's nothing showing that anything happened to him," Wasylyshyn said. "And then we're still doing the internal (investigation) to see, ok, what could we have done differently?"
Staff at the Justice Center immediately started CPR and called for medics when Dewitt was found. An automated external defibrillator (AED) was also used in an attempt to revive him.
The sheriff says this is not a common occurrence at the jail. In fact, he says it's the first death they've had in years.
"The reason for that is we really do try to run a very tight ship and have as safe of an environment as we can," he said.
Sheriff Wasylyshyn says they won't know the exact cause of Dewitt's death until they get the autopsy and toxicology screens back, which could take weeks. For now, he says they're continuing the internal investigation to make sure staff are doing everything they can to prevent situations like this.
