A woman managed to survive in inhuman conditions, locked in a holding cell in a northern Arkansas courthouse without water, food or toilet for four days, as the authorities forgotten her there, the local Sheriff’s Department informed Tuesday.

The 38-year-old Adriana Torres-Flores was arrested on charges related to the sale of pirated DVDs and CDs. She appeared before the court on Thursday, where she pleaded not guilty. She was placed in the holding cell, where she was supposed to wait for about an hour before being transferred to the county jail.  

But bailiff Jarrod Hankins, who has been for two weeks on the job, apparently forgot that he had placed Mrs. Torres-Flores in the cell, leaving her in the empty courthouse until Monday morning, said the chief deputy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, Jay Cantrell.

Due to the snowstorm very few employees arrived to work on Friday. No one heard the woman screaming for help.

Torres-Flores, who is an illegal Mexican immigrant for 19 years, was taken to hospital for treatment, and she is resting at her Springdale home at the moment. She still faces deportation. Her trial was set on April 1.

She told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, with her 14-year-old daughter acting as interpreter, about the horrible experience she had survived. Her daughter, Adriana Torres-Diaz said that her mother had to use one of her shoes as pillow. There was a metal table and a bench in the cell and a light she couldn’t turn off.

She had no toilet, and she urinated on the floor. Also, the woman said that she was so thirsty, that she drank her own urine. Her desperation made her believe that she was going to die there.

Cantrell said that Hankins is very distraught over the incident, and concerned for the woman’s health. The bailiff had been placed on administrative leave. There will be an internal investigation, Cantrell said. He added that “There was no malicious intent. The whole thing is terrible.”

The remark was made after Mrs. Torres-Flores’ immigration lawyer, Roy Petty, said that authorities are discriminative when treating Hispanics:

“Frankly, that’s how they treat Hispanics down here. They treat Hispanics like cattle, like less than human.”

Rita Sklar, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Arkansas, expressed the same concerns:

“There certainly have been a lot of problems in that corner of the state, in terms of police treatment of Latinos and bigoted statements by government officials. We’re looking into the general problem in northwest Arkansas of racial profiling and abuse of power.”

Mexican consul Andres Chao visited Torres-Flores as she rested at home Tuesday. Chao said she still suffered from periodic headaches and stomach aches.

Chao met Tuesday with Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder and county Judge Jerry Hunton to offer “the highest protest of the Mexican government,” the Associated Press notes.