THE DEATH OF A
CUMMINS INMATE
FROM UNTREATED HEPATITIS AND BEATINGS
By Linda Tant Miller
In December, 1984, my brother, Bud Tant, robbed a bank
in North Little Rock, Arkansas and compounded the crime by shooting at the
police who arrested him. His guilt was plain. I will not excuse his crime nor
discount the fact that he had to pay his debt to society for it, behind bars.
But Bud was our family's only son and brother. However
shocked and sad we were at what he had done, we loved him. He was handsome,
intelligent, charming, funny, kind and so soft-hearted that I still can't get
an image of him doing what I know he did. Our dad was in the Navy and raised us
to be decent, responsible and patriotic. Bud somehow became addicted to drugs
later on. It destroyed his moral standards and in the end, his life.
My mother and step-father hired a high-priced lawyer named
John Achor to represent Bud. On this man's advice, Bud pled guilty in a
"plea bargain" -- yet received a sentence of life plus 80 years, the
maximum sentence possible. It turned out that his attorney and the judge who
sentenced him were involved in a "bleed 'em and plead 'em" scam which
made a lot of money for the lawyers and judges involved in it, while selling
defendants "down the river." Still, Bud had committed the crime and
we all agreed that he had to pay the penalty. None of us knew the price we
would all have to pay for his crime.
In 1995, after years of health problems, Bud was
diagnosed with Hepatitis B and C at a university hospital in
Horrified as I was at the prospect of him undergoing
such serious health problems and medical treatment, I am grateful that we
didn't know the whole truth then: that he would be left to die without any
treatment at all. We did not know that he would be routinely beaten and kicked
by guards and medical staff while he was dying.
In 1997 Dad and I went to
The "bleeds" were frequent. Unlike whole
blood, plasma can be safely drawn once or twice a week. A politically-connected
company had for years run a plasma program at Cummins. Prisoners could earn a
few dollars in prison commissary scrip for each unit, but the company and the
prison system got $50 a unit or more for the plasma, and made millions.
Accordingly, officials pushed inmates hard to donate blood plasma. Bud always
obliged.
The prison hadn't told Bud or any of us that he had
these viruses. This failure placed all of us -- including my grandson whom I
took to visit him as an infant -- at risk of infection. I was outraged!
Our whole family managed to visit Bud several times a
year as his health continued to decline. He looked like a yellow scarecrow. His
stomach bloated as though he was pregnant. His eyes were sunken and ringed with
red and black circles. At one time his genitals were so swollen it looked like
he had a football in his pants. He said that when he sat on the toilet his
testicles touched the water. He was provided Tylenol for his pain.
About three weeks before he died, Bud told Dad during
a phone conversation that he had fallen and when he was unable to rise on command a guard had begun to assault him. Dad can't
remember if Bud said the guard hit or kicked him in the side, but Bud said he
thought some of his ribs were broken.
Two inmates have since told me that the week after
this assault Bud was taken to the nurse's station in a wheelchair, in extreme
respiratory distress and shaking violently. After a period of time during which
he was ignored by the nurses gossiping at the desk,
and upon prompting by prisoners, Bud was provided a tank of oxygen. After he
had breathed the oxygen for a while, one of the nurses handed him a pill with a
glass of juice. While trying to drink the juice he spilled some because he was
still shaking violently. The nurse hit him in the head and said, "I wish
this one would hurry up and die and get it over with. He's a pain in the
ass!"
A week later Bud was taken to
Sue and I lived in the ICU waiting room for the last
two weeks of Bud's life. The rest of the family was there all day and late into
every night, but Sue and I slept on sleeping bags in the corner of the room and
left only long enough to shower and change clothes. The staff
were wonderfully kind. Two of the nurses who cared for Bud came into the
waiting room at the end of their shifts and visited and cried with us. His
doctor was obviously angry with the prison, promising that if Bud survived he
would keep him in the hospital until an Act 290 release (a procedure to release
prisoners with a terminal illness) was completed. We were numbly grateful for
their compassion, and so grief-stricken that we didn't at that time comprehend
that there was more to their kindness than met the eye. They knew far more than
we did about what had happened to Bud.
Recently one of the ICU RNs who had cared for Bud as
he was dying found my web site and left me a message. We began a communication
which has enlightened me about some of what my brother endured at the hands of
the ADC as he was dying.
Here is text from a couple of letters I received from
this nurse who witnesses suffering and death as a regular part of her job and
yet is haunted by my brother's agony:
"I remember asking Bud about his history (for our
admission records) and he kept repeating that those guards are beating him. He
had bruises and was crying "please help me." I felt so helpless. I
really did. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. There is a thin frail man,
bruised, obviously hurting, and I didn't know what to do. I felt so bad because
I knew if he got better enough to go back, what else would happen? He also
complained of one of his legs hurting."
"I also remember Bud saying they knocked him out
of his wheelchair and the guard demanded he get up off the floor and he said he
couldn't. The guard began yelling and hitting him and he said his left arm got
pinned against the wheelchair somehow. He said the guard started kicking him.
He said he kept requesting medical attention, but they did not act very anxious
to fulfill his request. I wonder if he was requesting medical attention before
that incident took place, or some time after? He had
bruises on his left arm and was 'guarding' his trunk area around his
chest/abdominal area. Oh, and he had fingers on his left hand that appeared to
have been injured. He kept begging for help and repeating that they were
beating him. He said he was hurting. I could tell he was very sick. That was
what I recall the most about his first few days."
So this is the "medical care" that the state
of
Here is a link to a photo of Bud.
LOOK AT HIM!
http://www.geocities.com/bloodcows
Bud's emaciated body weighed 75 lbs when we buried
him. Who could beat and kick a defenseless, dying man?
I wrote a letter to Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee
and all state legislators and enclosed the information provided here. I asked Governor
Huckabee for an appointment to speak with him. I've tried on many occasions,
only to be told each and every time that he was "unavailable." This
time I told him I will be in
I challenge, I IMPLORE every Arkansas State Legislator
to go to the Diagnostic Unit. Root out this cancer. Demand an accounting from
these "medical professionals" of their criminal actions against a
dying man. Somebody, please find out who these guards and "nurses"
are who abuse helpless and dying human beings. They belong on the other side of
the bars!
Because of the greed and corruption of the
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This heartbreaking original article is written especially for
More later. Every time I read this I get
sick....
Linda
LINDA TANT MILLER
PRISON REFORM UNITY PROJECT (PRUP)
http://www.prup.net