Site last updated: Thursday, March 28, 2024

Log In

Reset Password
MENU
Butler County's great daily newspaper

Prison guards stop inmate from hanging herself

She used sheet to serve as a rope

Two corrections officers at the Butler County Prison this month saved an inmate’s life after she tried to hang herself in a cell.

Warden Rick Shaffer said Officer John Prazer on April 6 was making a security check in the female inmate pod when he spotted the 25-year-old inmate hanging in her cell.

Shaffer said at the county prison board meeting Tuesday that the woman, whose name was unavailable, tightly wound a sheet to serve as a rope, which was tied to her bunk.

After Prazer found her at 3:35 p.m., Officer Anita Vicari helped him free the inmate from her noose.

“Both of them had to hold her up,” Shaffer said.

The officers simultaneously wrangled with the makeshift noose to save the woman.

“They couldn’t cut it because it was too tight,” Shaffer said.

After the officers released the woman from the noose, a nurse tended to her.

“She started breathing again,” Shaffer said.

He said the woman, who recently lost custody of her children, asked why the officers saved her.

“She was depressed,” Shaffer said.

He said the outcome would have been different if the woman was found later.

“She would probably have passed,” Shaffer said.

County Commissioner Dale Pinkerton, prison board chairman, lauded the officers’ efforts.

“It’s great that they found her,” Pinkerton said.

Shaffer said during his 25-year tenure with the county, there were four inmates who killed themselves by hanging in the former prison that was next to the government center.

The old prison, which was on Vogely Street, was replaced in 2009 with the current building on North Washington Street.

Prison board member Commissioner Jim Eckstein suggested the officers, who are both county residents, be recognized.

“I think we ought to honor the guards,” Eckstein said.

County Judge William Shaffer said Eckstein could make a proposal for the board to consider. Eckstein agreed to do so.

More in Local News

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

* indicates required
TODAY'S PHOTOS