On the last Friday of April 2020 I was on suicide precautions at Keen Mountain Correctional Center. I was not suicidal. I was mistaken.
Two days before I made the mistake of telling the officers in B2 pod that I was having a hard time slowing my thoughts down since my medication had been suddenly discontinued.
KMCC had a policy where if you give a dirty urine sample at the time of your intake you are automatically taken off of the psych medication you are prescribed when you first arrive. Weed counts. I was self-medicating while at Sussex 1 State Prison, so KMCC took me off the psych meds I had been on for 10 years.
When I made the mistake of asking for help I was stripped naked, given a “safety smock”, and put into a cold room in the back of the medical department, with a rubber bed. I was left there until the next morning. I spent the night in a cell with a camera in the ceiling. My thoughts were moving too fast for me to think one thing. When I tried I would suddenly be thinking about something else and struggling to remember my last thought. I get where I am uncomfortable inside. The pressure presses every nerve. I can feel that it is coming from outside of me. I know that I should know where. I know that I am failing at what everyone else does without thinking. It is a broken feeling. A thing to be suffered alone.
On the last Friday of April 2020 I was handcuffed behind my back, shackled and pushed across KMCC from the medical department, outside, past the recreation yard, past A and B building to C building, in a wheelchair, wearing only the mid-thigh length safety smock, exposing myself to every prisoner on the recreation yard and whoever happened to look out of those building’s windows.
This was my fault. I had been in prison for over 20 years. I knew better than to ask for help from anyone.
I deserved whatever I got. I deserved to be left standing barefoot in a steel wet used shower while officers moved another prisoner from the second cell which was a “mental health observation” cell, which meant it had no table or shelf, just another rubber bed and a camera in the ceiling. It Also had the most filth of any cell I had ever seen. The previous occupant had been moved out but the officers left all his used tissue, old pieces of food, clumps of his long shed hair on the floor. The toilet seat was covered in a crust of dried urine and spit. Thankfully the officers turned the water back on so I could flush the accumulated waste that the last person had left in the bowl. It took many flushes to clear the parts that would move. The rest might still be there. The smell never changed.
I blame myself for that cell. If I had just refused to go into my cell I would have been put into the same building, same pod, on the day before. I would have had my clothes and radio and a blanket instead of a heavy blue vest with Velcro on it.
I was left inside my new filthy cell with toilet paper. While I was trying to clean up I found a razor on the floor. It was outside of the plastic housing that razors came in. It was bent and it wasn’t very sharp but it was perfect.
I cut myself. I have done it for thirty years. It is the only thing guaranteed to let the pressure out of my brain. It has never failed. This was as good a sign as I could hope for.
My first clear memory from the day before until then is dragging that dull razor across the ancient scars on the front of my thigh. I pressed hard until I felt that bite of my skin parting. A red line followed the razor from the outer side to the inside of my leg. I think about it now and hear an imaginary hissing sound like too much air rushing out of a tire about to burst.
When I looked up an officer was at the door watching me. Had I been more aware I would have been more discrete.
The prisoner in the first cell was moved out and I was moved into that cell. The officers didn’t want to have to come into the second cell because it was so filthy. One officer had a handheld camera on me the entire time. A QMHP(Qualified Mental Health Professional) was there. She ordered me put into 5 point restraints, which I have been in before. It was never done after one incident and usually the QMHP will speak with me first to see what is going on.
I was give a pair of boxer shorts and strapped down on the hard rubber hump in a cold room, with a vent that kept a breeze at all times. Anyone who has ever been in VADOC will attest to the fact that all segregation pods are kept as cold as possible. KMCC was no exception.
If someone would have told me that I would be strapped down in only a pair of boxers I would not have believed it. There was no reason why. It was a punishment.
That Friday evening into night and next morning into evening was the worst physical torture I ever experienced. Nothing comes close. For 24 hours I had a new kind of cold. A cold that I couldn’t do anything but shiver and wonder at how hypothermia worked. The cold made the discomfort of being cuffed at the wrist and ankle with a broad strap compressing my chest so much more serious. It was compounded by the officers who came by the cell door, looking in the window at a scene that could not possibly have looked right to any rational person. Officers looked in, looked me up and down then went on their way.
Every 4 hours I was removed from the 5 point restraints for a couple minutes. I was first covered by an electric “shock shield”, then my wrist and ankles were taken out of the restraints and put into “ambulatory restraints”. That means I was handcuffed in front and shackled with a short chain that connected the two. It is like being hogtied with metal where I could not stand up straight. At this time I was allowed some tap water and an opportunity to use the bathroom in the small cell with 8 officers in riot gear and helmets lined up along the walls.
After two minutes of officers asking if I was done yet I was again restrained to the rubber hump. Once a Sgt. Dye pulled the chest strap so tight I could not breath. A nurse was there. She was there to check that the restraints were properly applied. She had to tell him twice to loosen it. The sergeant was not happy. At the end of all resolve I cried. I prayed for sleep. I begged every face at the cell window for clothes, a sheet, a blanket, anything.
I cannot describe being strapped down for that long under those conditions. All of this was worse because my mind was spinning faster than I could keep up. I flipped from the horror of an officer rushing into the cell and slamming an ax in my chest, to thinking my hair standing on end would use all my energy and I would die of exhaustion. I was all fear.
I finally started to doze but woke right at the moment I was slipping from my hellish reality into a dream. That kept happening over and over. I wanted to scream to almost escape.
I finally strung minutes of unconsciousness together. I awoke to a light through the window. I cried at having survived the night.
I was broken. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done to ensure I didn’t have to go through that again.
24 hours after I was strapped down in my underwear I was taken out of 5 point restraints. I was given a safety smock. It was the best thing I ever had. QMHP finally asked me some questions. The gist of which is she needs to strap me back down. I answered that I had learned my lesson. I had been punished.
I deserved it.