Alex Wubbels

Alex Wubbels is an American nurse who worked at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, where she began nursing in 2009 after earlier competing as an alpine skier under her birth name, Alex Shaffer. She was national champion in slalom and giant slalom in 1999 and took part in the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics before earning a nursing degree at the University of Utah. She became widely known after July 26, 2017, when she refused a police detective's demand to draw blood from an unconscious crash victim, citing hospital policy that required an arrest, patient consent or a warrant, and was handcuffed and put in a police car for obstruction before being released without charge. Body camera footage made the encounter public. The detective was fired, his supervisor was demoted, and the city and the university settled with her for 500,000 dollars. The case is often cited in discussions of patient consent and a nurse's duty to follow hospital policy against pressure from law enforcement.