Nurse Alex Wubbels, right, displays video frame grabs of her being taken into custody while her attorney Karra Porter looks on Friday in Salt Lake City. Wubbels had told police Detective Jeff Payne that he could not get a blood sample without a warrant or consent from the patient.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah nurse said she was scared to death when a police officer handcuffed and dragged her screaming from a hospital after she refused to allow a blood draw on an unconscious patient.

“This cop bullied me. He bullied me to the utmost extreme,” Alex Wubbels said.

The Salt Lake City police chief and mayor have apologized and changed department policies in line with the guidance Wubbels was adhering to in the July 26 incident.

She said she acted as any good nurse would, following her training and protocols to protect the rights of a patient who couldn't speak for himself.

“You can't just take blood if you don't have a legitimate concern for something to be tested,” Wubbels said. “It is the most personal property I think that we can have besides our skin and bones and organs.”

Salt Lake City police Detective Jeff Payne has been suspended from the department's blood-draw unit, but remains on duty as a detective in investigations amid reviews by the department and a civilian review board.

Police Chief Mike Brown said his department takes the matter with Wubbels very seriously. “I was alarmed by what I saw in the video with our officer,” Brown said.

Police body-camera video shows Wubbels, who works in the burn unit, explaining that blood could not take be taken from the patient who had been injured in a deadly car accident, citing a recent change in law. A 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirmed that a blood sample cannot be taken without patient consent or a warrant.

The dispute ended with Payne saying, “We're done, you're under arrest” and physically moving her outside while she screamed and said, “I've done nothing wrong!” The department said the frustrated Payne had called his supervisor and that several people went back and forth about the time-sensitive blood draw for over an hour.

“It's not an excuse. It definitely doesn't forgive what happened,” police spokeswoman Christina Judd said.

Wubbels followed hospital policy and advice from her bosses when she told Payne that he could not get the blood sample without a warrant or consent from the patient, said her lawyer, Karra Porter.

The detective left Wubbels in a police car for 20 minutes before realizing that blood had already been drawn as part of treatment, her attorney said. She was not booked or charged.