Woman breaks her neck inside St. Clair County Jail, isn't taken to the hospital for days

‘They were moving me all around and I had a broken neck.’

Imagine falling and breaking your neck, but no one takes you to the hospital right away.

That’s exactly what a local woman says happened to her inside the St. Clair County Jail and now she’s trying to make sure something like this doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Lisa Brown takes full responsibility for why she ended up briefly behind bars. But now she says a 20-day jail sentence has left her with a life sentence of partial paralysis and disability.

ManniSturgis,

I hate these sob story videos American news stations make of these things. I don’t need to see this lady struggling to figure out that this is a horrible thing.

Son_of_dad,

Cruel and unusual punishment. If that’s not this, I don’t know what is

merc,

Stories like this is why I find it plausible that Epstein killed himself in jail.

Jails are full of incompetent, cruel workers. They use outdated tech, and don’t properly maintain it. Unfortunately, someone dying or killing themselves in jail, even if they’re under a suicide watch, even if they’re a prominent figure, is all too easy to believe.

homesweethomeMrL,

Prison reform is critical

Darrell_Winfield,

I’m usually one to discount news stories for being dramatic and misleading, but this one is pretty rough. Unsure how she fell in the first place, but the video of her on the floor with the pointed toes is rough to watch. That’s a hard one to fake, and is a clear sign of spinal trauma.

Classy,

The article states clearly how she fell. She was sleeping on the top bunk in her cell, about 6’ off the ground, and apparently she rolled off and hit the ground, causing a cervical fracture.

Darrell_Winfield,

Right, I read that part. I’m not very knowledgeable on the topic, but wouldn’t a top bunk have a railing?

For what it’s worth, I’ve seen plenty of inmates who “fell from the top bunk” and they have obvious knuckle marks on their cheeks from being punched. So I’m a little suspicious of those kinds of “falls”.

Zarxrax,

Only time I’ve ever heard of bunk beds having railing is for little kid beds.

BlitzoTheOisSilent,

It’s been 11 years, but I’m almost positive our bunks in bootcamp had railings on at least the top bunk. I was Navy, other branches may have been different, but they’re not just for little kids.

Custoslibera,

Railing on the top bunk could be a hanging risk.

Depends on the type of cell they were housed in. May have been an observation or dry cell.

Virgo,

Imagine living with the sound of gritty grinding reverberating through your skull from shattered vertebrae for three days

And all that for a 20 day sentence

tsonfeir,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

Hopefully she wins a lawsuit

yuriy,

In a perfect world the payout fucking destroys this police force and a new one is built from the ground up.

Realistically something as bad if not worse will happen there within a year. 50/50 whether it even makes news.

chiliedogg,

The taxpayers are gonna lose millions while the cops responsible for this suffer no consequences whatsoever. And any politician trying to hold them responsible will be treated as being “weak on crime.”

ipkpjersi,

The taxpayers are gonna lose millions while the cops responsible for this suffer no consequences whatsoever.

That’s the really disgusting part. It’s disgusting they designed a system like this, and that the system is working as designed. This is not an oversight. This is intentional.

werefreeatlast,

“now she’s trying to…” what? I thought that when you break your neck that’s it, lights go out end of show. How did she end up trying to do anything?

Mrderisant,

Oh no. It depends on if any/which nerves are crushed/cut.

werefreeatlast,

So she literally had to hold her head around to do anything the entire time? That’s crazy. I’m guessing she just stood there motionless on the floor the entire time. That’s what I would do to prevent pain if you move the wrong way.

BreakDecks,

I know it’s tempting to rationalize something this evil as being fake. It would be nice if it were. But these kinds of comments just serve to further deny humanity to people who end up this badly mistreated.

werefreeatlast,

I had sciatica pain and the best way to avoid it was to just not move my legs. Otherwise it was like normal normal…oh you’re dying from the pain, then back to normal. So I’m guessing that’s how it feels on the neck with a nerve injury that produces pain.

OftenWrong,

She had a broken fucking neck. It’s not up for debate. Just stop.

werefreeatlast,

I totally don’t think it’s fake. I was more interested as to how the heck she got out of that situation. Like another commenter said, the injury varies, but maybe if you move it gets worse. But like somebody must have found her on the floor and helped her? I’m thinking maybe somebody found her on the floor then called paramedics? Because otherwise maybe she wouldn’t have had a chance at all.

merc,

Believe it or not, they lie to you in movies / tv.

werefreeatlast,

LOL fair enough.

NatakuNox,
@NatakuNox@lemmy.world avatar

That’s not how every spinal injury works. It’s honestly roll of the dice every time and different for every individual. It can rang from tingling in one or more limbs, extreme pain, loss of control of all voluntary movements, to death.

Classy,

There are multiple components running through your neck that coincide with the spinal column. Nerves, blood vessels, the larynx, muscles, all kinds of things. Traumatic injury to the neck can break one or many of those things and not all in the same way, even with similarly natured injuries.

Someone could break the bones in their neck while maintaining an intact nervous system and not lose the ability to move around, or someone else can snap their nerves or puncture their larynx and suffocate. It all depends.

Ultragigagigantic,
@Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world avatar

Just another day in the shitter multiverse

mycathas9lives,
@mycathas9lives@mastodon.social avatar

@Ultragigagigantic @MicroWave

The most boring place ever

ChocoboRocket,

It’s absolutely about the cruelty.

Realistically, if they took her to the hospital wouldn’t she wind up with an absolutely eye watering hospital bill? One that would likely take her the rest of her life to pay off?

Instead, they calculated that the outcome of denied medical care would cost this person more than a lifetime of medical debt - even if the lawsuit against them paid out.

Azzu,

It’s not that involved I don’t think. It’s simply sadism.

shalafi, (edited )

Oh BS. Ever been in jail? You’re in with some of the dumbest, and incorrigible, members of society. It’s stunning how many of those dudes take county jail as a fact of life, totally used to it. They are constantly lying, faking and scheming for anything they can get.

So what’s a CO to do? Apparently their default answer to anything is “NO.” I have a friend in CO training who has been lauded for denying any and all inmate requests. That job is going to make him a bastard, I can see it.

Then you got the guy they transferred in one day. Dude has a clearly infected tooth, face badly swollen on one side. They packed him full of gauge, gave him a cloth to hold his jaw up, like an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, and 2 Tylenol. Damn.

Point being, jail is a fucked up mess and the CO’s are barely brighter than the inmates. Nobody’s calculating all that. Hell, if they knew her neck was broken, they also knew they might get their ass sued off.

Diplomjodler, (edited )

None of this is accidental or a failure of the system. The system works as designed.

intensely_human,

Even if only subconsciously, this is exactly the same side of humanity that came out in the Holocaust.

The Nazis didn’t just exterminate people in the Holocaust. They also mistreated them horribly, tortured them, played sadistic mind games with them.

That same shit is in all of us, and it comes out if we don’t manage ourselves correctly.

A woman who breaks her neck in jail and doesn’t get treated for three days is not just a story of incompetence. It is a story of sadism. It’s a story of evil.

mojo_raisin,

That same shit is in all of us

I don’t believe this is true, I don’t believe I personally could ever take pleasure in another’s serious pain (i.e. doesn’t include laughing at my friend slipping on a banana). While many in nazi germany may have had a bit of repressed sadism, many others had to be tricked or coerced into doing banal evil things.

voodooattack,

It’s all about empathy. If you dehumanise a group enough they become “other” to your human subconscious, and you exhibit sociopathic behaviour toward them.

The problem is that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you dehumanise someone to the smallest degree and feel guilt (because you’re still a good person), your subconscious will dehumanise them further in order to cope. (e.g they’re criminals so they’ve probably done worse). Then the next time you abuse them, it becomes easier.

This self perpetuating cycle keeps happening until you feel absolutely no sympathy for them, and consequently no guilt.

Now, the real question is whether or not you’re capable of dehumanising someone to begin with. I personally think that yes, we’re all capable, and all it takes is some bad influence (e.g bad preconceptions/media brainwashing), and in the case of police officers, a healthy dose of peer pressure.

mojo_raisin,

I don’t think dehumanization works on everybody. Dehumanization works on already kinda shitty people that view themselves as above others. I am not like that personally and I’m sure I’m not nearly the only one. I simply don’t see myself as entitled to cause suffering in any other conscious being, human or not (except that which is necessary to sustain life as an omnivore – which I am entitled as a living being).

intensely_human,

So you’re saying that there’s a certain group of people that dehumanization works on? And a different group that it doesn’t work on? Two distinct categories of people?

mojo_raisin,

Clearly, what’s your point? There are many groupings people can be put into depending on perspective.

intensely_human,

Only that dehumanization does not literally mean they don’t think the people are human.

What the word refers to is a situation in which moral vulnerabilities are present only in some other group, which the home group doesn’t fall prey too. That they’re a slightly different type of human, which is missing some moral safeguard and therefore presents a threat in a way the home group could never present.

voodooattack,

I don’t think dehumanization works on everybody. Dehumanization works on already kinda shitty people that view themselves as above others. I am not like that personally and I’m sure I’m not nearly the only one. I simply don’t see myself as entitled to cause suffering in any other conscious being, human or not

You are not like that, currently. But in the right environment and in the right situation, you’ll find out that to the contrary, you are exactly like that.

Humans are wired to (justifiably or not) vilify anyone who’d pose a threat to their safety, or the safety of their loved ones. Vilify a person or group too many times (e.g with daily mass media brainwashing) and they will be completely dehumanised, eventually.

Now, that threat doesn’t have to be physical, or even real. Just perceived threat is enough. It doesn’t have to be substantiated either.

Look at every racist and extremist in existence and try to understand where they’re coming from. They weren’t born that way. Their environments made of them what they are.

mojo_raisin, (edited )

You are not like that, currently. But in the right environment and in the right situation, you’ll find out that to the contrary, you are exactly like that.

Humans are wired to (justifiably or not) vilify anyone who’d pose a threat to their safety

You’re right, I left out self-defense, which is in fact a situation where I would cause suffering, but this is not unnecessary suffering, it is necessary for my safety. And I would not go beyond what is needed for safety. Dehumanization does not apply here.

Look at every racist and extremist in existence and try to understand where they’re coming from.

I know exactly where they are coming from. Racists are blaming a peoples for the perceived bad behavior from a subset of that group, prejudice, this is wrong and a sign of a shitty person.

I am a trans Mexican woman amongst other “undesirable” categories. My main enemy consists of a subset of white men, they are the ones primarily keeping me down, does it make sense for me to hate white people? Am I a decent person for being anti-white because some white people harm me? No.

I don’t hate white men, I hate those individuals who may be white men, but I don’t hate their color or sex, I hate their acts. I don’t dehumanized white men.

Etterra,

We don’t have a justice system. We have an incarceration industrial complex. It also doubles as a replacement for (now technically illegal) slave labor.

nondescripthandle,

Correct. Im friendly with a CO who regularly gets derided for taking inmates to the infirmary when they say they’re sick. The CO cultural MO seems to be everyone’s faking it unless you can see blood or bone. The dudes proactivity has stopped what could have been a major flu outbreak and still they ride his ass when he brings sick inmates to the infirmary. Even the doctors working there dont like that he brings sick patients to them. It’s rotten apples almost all the way down.

shalafi,

Got a close friend in CO training. They love him because he denies the inmates anything they ask for. Told him long before he started, they’re going to change him for the worse. And it’s happening.

mojo_raisin,

Sorry to tell you, your close friend is already a bad person. Good people don’t volunteer to oppress people and deny their needs, especially after being told it’s going to make them worse.

Something something the company you keep…

shalafi,

He’s 21 with no education or skills. Here he gets offered a job that pays decently, has free training and has solid benefits, best thing he’s ever been offered.

He has no idea what he’s getting into. And now that he’s into it, he’s succeeding and being lauded for once in his life, told he’s doing great, for once in his life.

Take your judgement on down the road. I’m doing what I can for him.

mojo_raisin,

Oh, he’s doing a great job and getting rewarded for treating people badly? Fuck that

nondescripthandle,

The CO I know is close to retirement and cant wait for it. Its rough though because hes conveyed to me he knows it’s going to be a worse place when hes gone but the amout of pushback he gets from the other officers to the Brass just isn’t good for him, simply for trying to do the job as it’s writren in the book. He’s got a family himself and as bad as the system has always been, he didn’t sign up for what it’s become. Its no wonder they cant find new recruits like they used to. The money’s right, the hours arent, the work isnt, and the cowerkers can be as dangerous as the inmates. Plus from the stories I’m told, you’re almost necessarily going to see some shit you can not un see.

bl_r,

My aunt is a doctor in a prison. She hates how long it will take for some people to be seen, sometimes because the guards just don’t think it’s a problem warranting taking them to the infirmary.

DontMakeMoreBabies,

I imagine some of the problem is compassion fatigue - lots of prisoners are antisocial assholes who refuse to abide by society's rules (or they're just fucking criminally stupid).

It'd be tough to keep caring about that sort of group day in and day out.

VeryVito,

True, and this is why the system needs to provide mental health services for these caretakers too. Right now, you’ve got the overwhelmed and frustrated overseeing the overwhelmed and frustrated, which is a recipe for disasters like this. Add a profit motive, and now you’ve got yourself a stew going.

theangryseal,

I had a friend who was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. She told me she was going to police academy. I didn’t feel like she was the right kind of person for it because her family is full of drug addicts and she’s very bitter about it, which she has the right to be, it’s a rough life. I just worried she’d see addicts through the lens of her own issues, you know?

Well, somewhere along the way during police academy, she decided to become a CO for a bit. I had never told her about my own issues with addiction, but I decided that then was the time to do it. I thought that she would hear about my struggle and it would help to humanize the inmates a bit. Her response made me feel like I got to her. That made me feel better.

After a few months working there she started going on about those people as “animals”. She developed reputation for being a cruel and callous guard who reveled in the misery of the inmates on her watch.

She and I aren’t friends these days. She is a county cop now and I hope I never encounter her. I really do.

FakeGreekGirl,

And that’s the truth about ACAB. The system makes them bastards, whether they go in that way or not.

ipkpjersi,

Even the doctors working there dont like that he brings sick patients to them. It’s rotten apples almost all the way down.

That’s mega fucked, wow. ADAB? Nah, I wouldn’t go that far.

kumatomic,

ACAB

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