Indiana prison treatment to the dying.
Pam Adams' brother, Bill French died in prison in Indiana on August 3,
2002. Bill died in the Indiana prison's "hospice", and Pam was permitted
to be with him most of the time.
That sounds like a really humanitarian gesture, doesn't it? But
the abuse, neglect and other horrors Pam and Bill endured was so egregious
that Pam has been knocked down - but not out.
Although she's been scarred forever by what they were subjected to, Pam
has taken pen in hand to make sure that the state of Indiana never forgets
what they did to her family, and to try to prevent them from ever treating
other people in that same manner.
Here is part one of her nightmare, in her own words:
Mr. Sevier, I just wanted to tell you a few things. I don't know
if you remember me or not. I'm William French's sister.
Remember, I was called on July 18th by your nursing director Kay Aynes,
and she said he may not make it until I get there, 5 hours away? I made
it. He came out of his coma for a few days.
Remember, I set up a meeting with you to discuss my treatment as a sister
of a dying man? At the meeting you kept looking at the clock in order
to make me feel like I was taking up a whole lot of your time.
Remember?
Remember, I'm the one that told you that the so-called hospice program,
was not comfortable, like a hospice is suppose to be? I realize they
are prisoners, but hospice is meant to make one comfortable while dying.
Remember, I left his side for a few hours to go take a shower and a quick
nap. While I was gone someone wasn't doing their job, and let him fall
while trying to go to the bathroom.
He hadn't walked in days. Have you ever tried to walk after being
in a coma, and not walking for however many days he laid there before I
was called?
I came back to the prison and all they could tell me was that an ambulance
had taken him.
I know hospice usually takes them straight to the morgue, but no one would
tell me if he was dead or alive, or where he'd been taken.
Have you ever spent two days sitting in a hotel room wondering if your
brother or other loved one is dead or alive?
Remember, I told you that it's not a good idea to put Captain Reigle and
his live-in girlfriend, Dotty working on the same desk at night together?
I did mean on the same desk, literally.
Bill had told me in letters about them making out in front of the infirmary
window.
I guess to a lot of your employees, dying prisoners are just a joke.
Remember, like you said, once they enter those doors most family members
just forget all about them? Remember I told you I had never forgotten
my brother and never would?
Remember, I told you I had finally had enough, and started to take notes,
because there was so much that went on that no one was supposed to see?
Remember when I told you there are two sanitation worker inmates who are
volunteering for hospice? Brian and Jason wasted no time getting their
gloves on, cleaning Bill, changing his cathater bag, changing Bill's bed,
bathing and shaving him.
Jason did the job of ten of your nurses. Actually, most of what
he did was the nurses' jobs.
Brian did the same, but mostly on the other side of the infirmary.
Why are those great volunteers no longer there? And Dr. Disonia?
Remember when I told you the nurses did not go into the infirmary and
check until 4:30 am. I had heard a buzzer ringing from 2am until almost
4am.
That was Nikki Chesterman, Donna Jenkins, and Dottie.
The night shift nurses would go to lunch and leave the nurses station
empty, or with a new, fill-in guard to sit there. Most of the time
it was empty.
Rememember when I vented to a guard? He told the nurses, and Nikki
the 3d shift nurse, smarted off to me several times in my dying brother's
room.
She also said what they didn't see at the nurses station, the video did
see.
Remember I told you I caught a guard snoring and sleeping at the video
cameras? You asked me who it was. I didn't want to say, for fear of retaliation
against my dying brother.
It was Louie, 3rd shift.
Remember after I vented to the guard, and he told the Captain? The
very next morning they came in and took the chair right out from underneath
my handicapped aunt's behind, and told her no more staying all night?
I had just left when they did that. (You probably don't remember
that, because you didn't even know my aunt was with me.)
But it didn't matter to me that they took the chair. I would have
stood up for 14 days to be by his side.
Remember when I was sitting at my brother's side, and Captain Regal or
Reigle came in at 9pm and told me I had to leave?
I explained to him that I never make a promise, so that I never have to
break one, but the night I rushed to get by my brother's side, I promised
him I wouldnt leave him.
It didn't matter to the Captain. I had to beg him for 15 more minutes
so I could beg my brother to die while I was there. So I could keep
my promise to him.
Have you ever had to beg your mother, father, brother, sister, or any
other loved one to die?
Remember when I told you when he made me leave that night that it took
something out of me; that I didn't even want to visit my dying brother there
anymore? I had to force myself to go for the next two days.
Not to mention, I had no transportation there with me and I was miles
from the hotel where my handicapped and deaf aunt was. Someone in the front
office called for her to pick me up.
Nobody cared.
Major Crabb, who had told them to make me leave, walked through the lobby
while I was in a shambles. He wouldn't even look at me.
Remember on Thursday, I was there from about 4:30 to 6:30 and left on
my own without being asked, but your guards at the front told other family
members who had driven all night to get there, that his visiting hours were
changed back to regular hours again on Wednesday?
Aren't regular visiting hours from 12-4 on Thursdays? Or 12-3?
Remember you telling me you guys would contact me if he got any worse?
Even after Kay Aynes said he couldn't get any worse; that the next step for
him was death.
Remember, I told you my next contact from the prison would be that he
was dead?
Remember, I went on to wait for the other family members, because they
were driving around until noon, to wait to get in to see him after being
awake all night.
Remember, me and the other family members went in to visit him and prayed
over him, praying for him to die while we were there?
Remember how hateful the employees were to me after the Captain had his
say?
Remember how I told you I had sat there sometimes all day and night, without
wanting to bother for an escort to go to the bathroom? Actually that
wasn't too bad, considering I wasn't offered a glass of water the whole time
I was there.
But I was there for my brother, not for me.
Remember me telling you and Kay that if it's hospice, they need to at
least paint some clouds on the wall, if its going to be used to die in?
There was a laugh and Kay said it would be to hard to clean? Have
you seen those walls?
Remember I told you that isolation chamber they were calling a hospice
unit, was the same room Bill was in 4 point restraints in a few weeks earlier,
because his cancer was going to his brain?
Then he died there.
Hospice? I think not.
Remember, right after our meeting I went to visit him until 4pm with other
family members?
Remember, at 2:15 am a girl from the prison called the hotel and wanted
to inform me that my FATHER had died at 1:10?
Remember I said, "EXCUSE ME, he's my brother!" I didn't think you would
remember that.
Remember, the next day a chaplain called and said my brother died at 1:30?
Didn't think you would remember that either.
Remember, I told him I don't think anyone knows what time he died, because
it was on the night shift, and it will never be known how many hours he laid
there before he was found.
Letters just like this are going out by e-mail and regular mail every
chance I get, documenting different things that happened to me while I was
with my dying brother.
It won't be stopping in Indiana.
All I needed was nine more hours with him, but you couldn't see it in
your heart to give me that.
Remember me and my brother William French, 08/18/52 - 08/0302.
You'll remember us. I'll make sure you never forget.
Part Two of this nightmare is coming soon.
© Copyright 2002 Pamela J. Adams
Two weeks in Supermax
with my dying brother