Thread by @ORprisonreport

Oregon Prison Report: Voices from the Inside

"I have observed people being so sick they thought they weren’t going to wake up the next day."

#ODOCKills #KateBrownKills #FreeThemAll

(Testimony from Oregon Justice Resource Center's (@OJRCenter) class action lawsuit against Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Department of Corrections.)

Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution (EOCI) / May 8th, 2020.

I am an inmate confined at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, in Pendleton, Oregon. I am 60 years old.

I have COPD, high blood pressure, for which I take medication, a heart murmur, and I had a heart attack years ago. I continue to have heart pain issues.

I am not aware of anyone at EOCI being designated as vulnerable.

I have observed people being so sick they thought they weren’t going to wake up the next day. They had trouble breathing when they lay down.

It was like their lungs would shut down, so they had to sit up to get their lungs going again. They had sore throats, headaches, lack of energy, and high temperatures.

They did not get tested. They were just told to wear masks and stay in their cells. They still went to eat with everyone and took their masks off to eat.

A memo went out that they were cleaning out unit C-1 for COVID-19 patients. There are approximately 6 or 7 people in C-1 right now. There is a lot of miscommunication going on. We are not sure whether people have it.

I work with a guy in the kitchen who told me he had a sore throat and he wasn’t feeling good about a week ago. He was lethargic, his hands were tingling, he had shortness of breath, and his lungs were hurting. I told him to put in a medical kyte.

Three days later, he got a kyte back to go to medical. They took lung X-rays and said they would be in touch.

He was not given a COVID-19 test. Yesterday, he told me they told him they don’t know what’s wrong with him, but they let him come back to work.

A lot of people aren’t going to say they’re sick because they don’t want to be celled in.

When I go to work in the cafeteria, I go to a staging area first. There are about 40 of us who work at a time. In the staging area, we get searched by the guards. The guards usually don’t wear masks. This concerns me, and I put in a kyte about it.

We wear masks to work in the cafeteria, but this just started last week. I was putting in kytes requesting masks a month before that.

About a week ago, they gave everyone at EOCI two masks. Hardly anyone is wearing them. The unit officers are not wearing masks. People working in medical are not consistently wearing masks.

When people go to the cafeteria, there is a line at the end for people wearing masks. They don’t close down the cafeteria for those people.

When they start chow, they call down one unit at a time and each unit has 20 minutes to eat. We serve between 600 and 800 people in 90 minutes. There is no time to clean in between servings.

Four people sit to a table, sitting two feet from each other. The tables are about four feet apart. When people line up for food, they are belly to back. People who are serving are elbow to elbow.

Each serving line has a guard or two, and they don’t wear masks.

I have witnessed guards who are sick, but they are still working because they are understaffed.

EOCI cut down on yard time, but we are still out there side by side. The units are still being mixed. We go out with three to five units at a time.

We are out there 50 people deep and right next to each other. In the TV room at night, we are all sitting right next to each other and touching the same things everyone else is touching.

I am nearly 61 years old, and I am scared.

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