Raymond Geddie, a case of medical neglect.
This is about what happened to my brother-in-law. It involves
severe medical neglect, cruel and unusual punishment in prison. You may
delete it when your are through reading it, but I myself know just how many
would NOT lose their lives if they just received the minimum amt. of medical
care when it is needed.
Hi Lee,
Enclosed is a picture of my brother-in-law, Raymond Geddie. (Please
don't think my whole family is a bunch of criminals!) This picture
was taken at Christmas, about 5 weeks ago.
When Raymond was 18 years, he fell from the roof of a two story house
that he was working on. He had a thoracic spinal cord injury, lost
50% function of right arm and hand, and also his ability to do manual labor.
He started selling and dealing in pot (marijuana). It became very
lucrative for him, and he continued selling for the next 15 years.
In November 1995, he and my sister, Dixie got married. She became
addicted to drugs at a very young age. She is twelve years younger
than the older 4 brothers and sisters, and drugs got worse after were were
out of high school etc. So to marry someone with all the pot
she could smoke and all the money to buy whatever else she wanted, she was
in her element!
He was eventually caught in March 1996. He went to court and got
the minimum required sentence for drug trafficking - 10 split 3 years.
He was out on two appeals and all of that for 5 years. He was
finally arrested in March 2001 and began his split 3 years.
When he had his accident years earlier, he had blood transfusions due
to internal injuries. He contracted Hepatitis C as a result.
He was told that he had it, but that he could live a normal life with it.
He had never had the first symptom from it.
In September 2001, he began to feel weak and nauseated a lot.
He knew it was futile to seek medical attention in the joint.
This went on a while, then he started having rectal bleeding. It was
later discovered that blood was pooling in his stomach, therefore the nausea.
He told family members that it was a hugh amount of bleeding. He
was treated with disgust by the so-called medical personnel. He said
he began to look like a ghost. Finally, when he could not physically
obey 'direct orders' to get out out of the steel slab (bed), they took him
to health care. He was finally taken to a real hospital where he had
to receive 7 pints of blood in short order. A man has 14-16 Grams of
hemoglobin in his blood count. Each gram represents one pint of blood.
So Raymond had lost 1/2 of his total whole blood volume! That's hypovolemic
shock. They let this near death state occur before getting him even
basic medical treatment and care. (I was in PRISON with a mother who
was charged and slammed in prison because of 'failure to seek medical
attention for her child'). Wow!
After Raymond's return to prison, he never felt like his health was
back up to par. The food is not fit for human consumption, so his
nutritional state was not good. He slowly declined in health and
received very little medical attention. That went on for another year.
In October 2002, he had another bad bleeding episode. He was just
in the prison "death care" that time. He has two brothers who have
really stayed on top of things for Raymond. They went to the Judge
in October 2002 and asked for a release on medical parole, or for those reasons
above.
The Judge was hateful, and turned them away saying, "I'm
not going to let him out, he didn't get enough time as it was." Very
cold attitude.
Around Thanksgiving 2002 Raymond required another hospitalization at
a real hospital for a week. The doctors there were appalled
at the of medical care and attention he had received at
the joint for this serious, now terminal condition. The doctor's,
at this point, could do nothing for him. They gave him a prognosis
of 3 weeks to 3 months to live.
Again his brothers went to the Judge. He was haughty about it,
but said, I've got to see some medical records, I can't take your word that
he's in the shape you say he's in. They arranged for the records
to be forwarded to the judge.
On December 17, 2002, the judge ordered Raymond's release from
the cage, and he sent a long letter of apology to Randy, Raymond's brother.
He even said he was sorry for the month delay while waiting on the medical
records, and that he wished him the very best.
This picture is the epitome of the last stages of cirrhosis.
He stomach is very bloated, otherwise he is literally skin and bone.
He is at home with his sister now. Hospice has been called in
on the case to oversee his care. However he is on the list in Birmingham,
Alabama for a liver transplant. Please pray that God will linger with
him until that miracle can occur!
Sincerely,
Beverly
Hi Lee,
Raymond died and was buried today at 2:00. What do you want to do about
his page? I had an e-mail set up for him and everything. We all
sure were hoping he could make it until he could get a liver transplant.
It's sad. He turned 47 y.o. in December, the day they let him out.
Oh, and they dismissed his probation completely, so the state wouldn't
have the financial burden. But, if he had been healthy and released
when his time was up, they would have had him on probation and slapped him
back in for the least little thing. That would have made them more money.
Beverly
2/24/03
© Copyright 2003 Beverly Brabham
This is a sad story. Raymond's death is an example of the big failure
of our prison system. He should have been released long ago and he
may have lived longer. He is free now and he is in the hearts of his
loved ones. I like to think that he has escaped and those who held
him will never see him again. Raymond, we never met or corresponded
and I think that is my loss.
Lee
Beverly's
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