Man treated for TB in Denver tired of 'abuse,' flees to Russia

An attorney for a Phoenix man locked up in a hospital jail ward and treated like an inmate says her client has left the country.

Doctors ruled recently that Robert Daniels was no longer contagious with tuberculosis after he underwent lung surgery while being treated at Denver's National Jewish Medical and Research Center.

He had been living in a Phoenix-area motel under monitoring by Maricopa County Public Health officials for the past few weeks.

Attorney Linda Cosme said Daniels sent her an e-mail from Moscow after arriving there on a flight Sunday.

"He apologized," Cosme said. "Essentially, he could not take the abuse from the county. He felt threatened (by Sheriff Joe Arpaio). He just couldn't take it any more."

After moving from Moscow to Arizona last year, leaving behind a a wife and a son, Daniels was treated for drug-resistant TB.

Last August, the 28-year-old Daniels was placed in solitary confinement in the jail ward at Maricopa Medical Center. A judge had ruled Daniels recklessly exposed others to his illness by going out in public without a mask.

Hooray for the Sheriff! Unbelievable that there’s man out there enforcing the law. What a novelty!
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Does anyone ever send this hero a pizza, a steak dinner, or other proper reward? He deserves it!

"He apologized," Cosme said. "Essentially, he could not take the abuse from the county. He felt threatened (by Sheriff Joe Arpaio). He just couldn't take it any more."

Was he forced to wear pink? Let him stay in Russia. We shouldn't allow him back into the U.S.A. ever again.

“sent her an e-mail from Moscow after arriving there on a flight Sunday...he could not take the abuse from the county. He felt threatened. He just couldn’t take it any more.”

You gotta give the guy some respect: Leftists all promise to do this (and we wish they would), but he actually pulled it off. I wish him luck! Being a man of his word is a good start.

Years and years ago when I was practicing medicine in Louisiana, I took care of this lady who came into the ER with complaints of fever, cough, and shortness of breath. She was found to have multi-drug resistant miliary TB. The lady refused inpatient admission for treatment so I had to post a mask-wearing security guard outside her reverse-respiratory isolation room. Despite this, the lady escaped from the hospital and went home. The chickensh*t security guard was too scared of her TB status to stop her so she walked out of the hospital. I then placed her on what’s known in Louisiana as a PEC (Physician Emergency Certificate) for a psychiatric hold seeing how she was not only a danger to herself but a danger to the public at large as well. The police and EMS came out to her house with full HAZMAT gears, masks gowns and all, handcuffed her and brought her back to the hospital. In fact, they brought her entire family to the hospital to make sure that they get TB screening and treatment as well. The story also made the evening TV news that night as well as the newspaper headlines the following morning. Hoards of people then came forward to our ER to get screened for TB because of exposure to this lady. Nobody really made a fuss about it at the time. No one called the ACLU or nothin’.

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