State prison officials plan to send medical staff to Kentucky soon to investigate the death of a Hawai'i inmate confined at the Otter Creek Correctional Center.

Inmate Sarah Ah Mau, 43, was taken early Friday from the prison to a local clinic after suffering what officials believe was a "serious heart attack," said Hawai'i Department of Public Safety spokesman Michael Gaede. The woman was having trouble breathing and had an irregular heart rhythm, he said.

She was transferred to the Hazard ARH Regional Medical Center, where she experienced organ failure and was put on life support. She died Saturday, Gaede said.

Ah Mau was sentenced in 1993 to life in prison for second-degree murder in the 1989 beating death of her 19-month-old son. She would have been eligible for parole in August 2008, according to Gaede.

She was one of 120 Hawai'i women imprisoned at the Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright, Ky., because there is no room for them in prisons in the Islands. Hawai'i houses about 1,850 men and women inmates in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona and Mississippi under contracts with the Corrections Corp. of America.

Frank Lopez, acting director of the state Department of Public Safety, said the death is the first he knows of among Hawai'i's women inmates confined in out-of-state prisons. The state has been sending women prisoners to the Mainland since 1997.

An autopsy was performed on Ah Mau yesterday, but final results are pending laboratory tests that are expected to be finished during the next month, Lopez said. When those tests are completed, the Department of Public Safety will send a member of its healthcare staff to meet with medical officials in Kentucky, he said.

"The key for us is the medical treatment received, that's what we're looking into," Lopez said. "First of all, we have to find out what kind of treatment she did receive, and who she received her treatment from."

Lopez said Ah Mau's body was to be placed on a flight last night for return to Hawai'i.

INQUIRY DEMANDED

Kat Brady, coordinator for the Community Alliance on Prisons, yesterday called for an independent inquiry into the medical care being provided to inmates at the Otter Creek prison. Although Brady has not visited the facility, she said inmates there told her that Ah Mau had been complaining about stomach pain for four weeks, and that prison medical staff gave her laxatives and other medications.

Brady said inmates told her that Ah Mau tried to convince Otter Creek officials that she was seriously ill, but that the woman was threatened with confinement in isolation if she continued to complain.

Brady said she is aware of at least two other cases in which women with serious medical problems allegedly were misdiagnosed by prison staff. One had pneumonia and another had a heart condition, and both eventually were hospitalized, she said.

Lopez said he does not believe an outside investigation is necessary. "At this point, I feel confident that our staff is capable of doing it, and I'm going to rely on our staff" to complete the inquiry, he said.

NO COMPLAINTS

Lopez said Hawai'i prison officials have no reason at this point to think that medical treatment at the Otter Creek prison is inadequate. Gaede said the Public Safety Department had not received any such reports.

"We have not had any complaints about it, nothing at all, and we didn't even get complaints about Sarah's stomach condition until this weekend," Gaede said.

Otter Creek records provided to Hawai'i officials yesterday show only that Ah Mau was treated with castor oil for constipation, but there is no record of her returning for follow-up treatment, Gaede said.

Hawai'i officials are concerned about communications with the Kentucky prison, Gaede said. Otter Creek staff notified Hawai'i officials that Ah Mau had been hospitalized, and later that she had been placed on life support, but Hawai'i officials didn't know she died until hearing the news from her sister, he said.

"There's some sort of chink in the communications there," Gaede said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.