Nurse Alex Wubbels Arrested, Grabbed By Utah Police Officer Jeff Payne, Screams: ‘Why Is He So Angry?’ [Video]
Nurse Alex Wubbels is going viral on Friday, September 1, because of a video that shows Nurse Wubbels being arrested for not allowing Salt Lake City Police Detective Jeff Payne to take blood from a patient who was unconscious. The below video from the YouTube account named “Police Activity” and titled “Nurse Gets Arrested For Not Allowing Blood Draw Without a Warrant” has swelled to nearly 40,000 views. The footage shows the full interaction of Nurse Wubbels’ arrest. The video named “Arrest of University Hospital nurse Alex Wobbles” via The Salt Lake Tribune YouTube account has gained 316,000 views.
Nurse Wubbels was working as the charge nurse at the University of Utah Hospital when Police Detective Jeff Payne waited for blood to be drawn from William Gray, a man who was unconscious, and whose information is clearly shown in the below video. Born on July 29, 1975, the 42-year-old William could not give his consent to have his blood drawn, which was one of the stipulations needed for Nurse Wubbels to allow police to draw blood from the truck driver who was a patient at the University of Utah Hospital after being in a car accident on July 26.
Nurse Wubbels printed out a form and showed Payne that if the patient couldn’t give consent, or if he hadn’t been arrested, and if police didn’t have a warrant, she wasn’t allowed to let police draw blood. With Nurse Alex’s supervisor on the phone, Payne was warned that he was harassing a nurse. That’s when Payne lost it, grabbed Nurse Alex, and dragged her out of the hospital. Nurse Wubbels screamed and told Payne he was assaulting her and asked Payne why he was so angry.
According to the New York Daily News, Nurse Wubbels’ supervisor told Payne he was “making a huge mistake,” but apparently, that didn’t sit well with the police. After Nurse Wubbels was forced into a police car, another police officer spoke with Nurse Alex, claiming that “her” policy was interfering with a police investigation.
Nurse Wubbels explained that is was not her policy and that she was attempting to follow the letter of the law. Nurse Alex later held a press conference, and Wubbels was joined by her lawyer, Karra Porter, as she called for the police to be better trained. Meanwhile, Nurse Wubbels is being called a hero for the way that she protected her patient based on the law, and the firing of the officers involved has become a rallying cry.
Nurse Wubbels explained that it is her job to keep her patients safe. The fact that a person’s blood is their personal property is something that was noted by Nurse Alex. However, the police officer that gave his name as “J. Payne” in the video and talked about “implied consent law,” which is believed to have not been the law in more than 10 years, claims he was instructed to arrest Nurse Wubbels if she didn’t let him illegally take the blood of the patient.
[Featured Image by George Frey/Getty Images]
