A 33-year-old El Paso County jail inmate who died in late September is the facility’s first reported coronavirus death during a yearlong outbreak where more than 1,300 inmates have become infected with the virus.  

The El Paso County coroner last week determined Steven Thorne died because of a coronavirus-linked blood clot, after the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, had initially said there was “no indication the death is related to COVID-19”. Thorne was not in the jail’s coronavirus protocols when he died, Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Lt. Deborah Mynatt said. He was diagnosed with the virus about a month before his death.

At the time he died, Thorne was in the jail’s general population and there was “no sort of indication, per our medical contractors, that this person was labeled as a COVID precaution or having anything related to that,” Mynatt said.  

His death “absolutely will be” recorded as a coronavirus-caused death and “will be recorded as, obviously, our first jail death” caused by the virus, El Paso County Coroner Dr. Leon Kelly said. 

Since the state started tracking a coronavirus outbreak at the jail on Oct. 27 last year, it has recorded 1,305 cases among inmates and 164 cases among staff but has not reported any deaths. Mynatt said Thorne’s death is the first inmate death attributed to the virus.  

Thorne is one of two inmates who died in the jail recently who are believed who have been killed by the virus, Kelly said. The autopsy for the other inmate has not yet been released. 

In April last year, Jeff Hopkins, a sheriff’s deputy stationed in the jail, died from the virus, but his death is not included in the state’s outbreak data because he died before it began tracking cases at the jail. Investigators believe he contracted the virus from co-workers at the jail.

“It is my opinion that Steven Thorne, a 33-year-old white male, died as a result of pulmonary thromboembolism in the setting of a recent COVID-19 infection,” wrote Dr. Megan Kliesner, who performed the autopsy. 

A pulmonary thromboembolism is the medical term for the kind of blood clot that is believed to have ultimately killed Thorne. The clot originated in Thorne’s calf before traveling to his lungs, blocking off blood flow until he died, the coroner determined. Blood clots are a common effect of COVID-19, and one of the main ways the coronavirus can kill.  

“One of the very lethal things about COVID-19 is it does very greatly increase the risk of forming blood clots,” Kelly said.  

Kelly is required to review the autopsies of all jail inmates, he said. 

Thorne was obese – weighing 347 pounds at the autopsy – and suffered from heart disease caused by high blood pressure, according to the autopsy, which listed those conditions as contributing factors to his death. Both conditions made him more susceptible to severe coronavirus infection, blood clots and death, Kelly said.  

Thorne collapsed on his way to the bathroom just after midnight on Sept. 25, the sheriff’s office said in a release. Jail staff “helped the inmate sit up at which point he was conscious and breathing,” the release said. About half an hour after Thorne collapsed, he became unresponsive and stopped breathing, the Sheriff’s office said, and jail staff and paramedics tried to revive him. The autopsy lists the official time of death as 4:45 a.m. 

Thorne’s clot, which started deep within his calf, could have initially felt like a cramp, Kelly said. After it had moved to his lungs, death could come on suddenly with few warning signs.  

El Paso County Sheriff’s Office Mynatt said she could not comment on the specifics of Thorne’s death, citing an investigation into the incident that will be completed this week.  

She did, however, say the state’s outbreak dashboard would “more than likely” have an inmate death listed after the page is updated. 

COVID-19 complications will be listed as the cause of death on Thorne’s death certificate, Kelly said. He also expects to see Thorne’s death reflected in the latest data, which is updated weekly on Wednesday.

“The data on our weekly outbreak report is determined by what local public health agencies report to CDPHE,” a spokesman for the state’s Emergency Operations Center said in an email. 

“In order for a death to be listed on our outbreak map it would have to have an epidemiological link to an outbreak that meets the outbreak definition,” the statement continued.  

The state does not comment on “specific individuals who may or may not be associated with outbreaks,” the spokesman said.