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An inmate at the Jessamine County Detention Center died at Saint Joseph Jessamine emergency room on December 29, 2022, after experiencing sudden cardiac arrest.

Twenty-two-year-old Michael Wasson was transferred from Fayette County to the Jessamine County Detention Center on December 27, 2022, just two days before he died.

Jessamine County Jailer Jon Sallee said that Wasson was initially arrested in Fayette County for an ankle monitor violation.

According to the 911 call from the detention center that the Journal obtained through an open records request, Wasson rejected medical evaluation upon intake.

The official coroner’s report has not been released, but Sallee said that from the preliminary autopsy, examiners found the cause of death to be natural causes due to extended drug use.

“What the medical examiners are seeing and saying is that all these long-term drug users that use intravenous drugs are destroying the valves in their heart,” Sallee said, “Causing them to go into cardiac arrest.”

Sallee said medical emergencies in the jail happen often.

“Overdoses from when law enforcement brings them in, shortly after they overdose cause they’ve ingested something,” he said. “Most of that is due to the inmate neglecting themselves for drug addiction reason or another, and then when they finally get caught or finally get into jail, they got a lot of medical needs.”

According to Wasson’s obituary, he was the son of Christy Denise Stokley and the late Woody Keith Wasson. He loved demolition derby and the mechanical working of cars.