Re: Sandra Bland. Man awarded $12 million after being denied epilepsy meds while in prison,
which led to a debilitating seizure.
Has anyone seen anything about whether Sandra Bland was on meds for her epilepsy, and if she got them in jail? I read that she refused a medical exam, which seems odd -- but a brain injured person can do odd things, and she said she'd hit her head.
If a person with epilepsy sustains a head injury, and also is denied epilepsy meds, that could easily lead to a seizure.
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/federal_jury_awards_12m_to_man_denied_epilepsy_medication_while_in_prison/
A man who said staff at an Illinois prison denied him his prescribed epilepsy medication while he was an inmate there was awarded $12 million on Friday by a federal jury in Chicago.
Raymond Fox suffered permanent brain damage from an aneurysm caused by a series of seizures and now requires personal care, his counsel told the jury, according to WBEZ and the Chicago Tribune. An earlier WBEZ article provides additional details.
An inmate in a neighboring cell said he heard Fox repeatedly pleading with officers and medical staff at Stateville Correctional Center that he needed his medicine, after his Dilantin prescription ran out.
“It’s about the psychology of not seeing the human portion of the people that are incarcerated for any number of reasons,” attorney Michael Kanovitz, who represented Fox in the suit against two medical technicians, told WBEZ. “Most people, if they break a law and they have to go to prison, they are there to pay their debt to society. It is not right to injure them in a way that will follow them for the rest of their life.”
