A real Man of God Malice in Wonderland a real man of god
Yüklə 1,63 Mb.
|
- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Love Letter to a Baby In Harm’s Way One Man’s Journey Through Hell Tomorrow Never Comes
- LOVE LETTER TO A BABY
- FALLING INTO HARMS WAY
MAIN STREET FAREWELL CRAB ORCHARD 1990
The scritch, scritch, scritch as Bunk rakes the blade of his pocket knife across his fingernails; The grriinnding motor of a battery-powered clock; The muffled rumble of the world passing Bunk by. "There goes ol' Billy Brown again," Bunk says as a brown Jeep rolls past the front window of his store. The silence in the store broken, Bunk's wife, Estelle, giggles like a little girl. "He ain't ridin' that motorcycle today, is he?" she says. "Wind's too cold.” The couple fall silent again and gaze out the window of the dim, empty store into a bright November afternoon. It's getting late for Bunk's store, which will close forever next week. A clock near Estelle says 2:49, but in the world outside it's 12:44 p.m.; 12 miles away at the Druther's on U.S. 27 in Stanford, the lunch crowd is just beginning to thin out. Across from Druther's sits the Wal-Mart. "Wal-Mart does real well," Estelle says. Nobody shops downtown anymore, says Theo Nantz, Crab Orchard's barber. "You live in Crab Orchard, you go to Danville or Lexington to shop," he says. "You live in Danville, you go to Louisville; you live in Lexington, you go to Cincinnati." "They go everywhere else in the world," Bunk says, "except for Crab Orchard." It's the same at the core of a lot of towns, says Bill Long, owner of the Western Auto store. "Your small towns are kind of dying away," says Long. Society moves fast these days, and Bunk Naylor doesn't. Bunk is 80 now, and Estelle is 77, and they can't keep up with the demands of retailing anymore. They never wanted it to be that complicated. "We never have too good-a stuff," Bunk says. "All we do is sell cheap stuff." The most expensive thing in the store is a $50 refrigerator -- one of those old models with the rounded corners. Among other things, there's also a blue bicycle for $28; an array of baby furniture; an old Victor adding machine; a lamp without a shade; used shoes and clothes; and dolls with bald spots. Bunk's store is a typical small-town store, and it is dying a typical small-town death. Main Street Crab Orchard, a town of 831 in Lincoln County, is not nearly as lively as it once was, and several buildings sit vacant in the block-long downtown commercial strip. Long's store has survived, but it might not have if Bill hadn't dropped certain lines carried by the Wal-Mart and concentrated on selling automotive parts. "Man," Bunk says, his teeth clenching a toothpick and his eyes fixed on the street, "this town used to be on a boom. My goodness, something all the time going on." He pauses for a minute, remembering the way the sidewalk in front of him once was filled with people on Saturdays. "She went down the drain." Since Bunk and Estelle opened up in 1983, business has gone from bad to worse. Today is no exception. It's as slow as it always is on Wednesdays, when Crab Orchard's bank is closed. But it's a Thursday. "That's the first time I've seen that woman in a while," Estelle says suddenly, her eyes riveted on a figure in a brown coat shuffling slowly past the front of the post office. "She musta been sick." It has been almost an hour since anyone has come in the store, despite a "Close Out Sale" sign on the front window. Estelle hopes things will pick up after folks get their paychecks the next day. "Hey, Bunk," says M.K. "Monk" Simpson as he pushes open the door. "Looks like you have a sale." "Nah," says Bunk, who's wearing a hat and jacket to keep warm in the cold store. "Just as sign out there. No sale. "Ain't nobody comin' in." A few minutes later, Monk buys two dolls on sale for $1 each, and Bunk and Estelle add his money to a pile of cash that will total $17 at day's end.
1991
Contents
LOVE LETTER TO A BABY LEXINGTON 1991
That was one of the last things you missed, but don't ask me to tell you what it was about; I didn't watch closely. I didn't laugh much, either. Who had the energy? Ordinarily, I wouldn't have been awake at 5:30 a.m. to watch old black-and-white television shows, but it was no ordinary morning. I'd spent the night slouched in a hospital room with one eye on your mother, who lay amid a solemn sentry of i.v. poles, and the other on a machine designed to turn my hair gray. They called the machine a fetal heart monitor, but I suspected it somehow was attached to me, too. Every time it said your heart skipped (beep-beep. . . beep), so did mine. The city was sleeping, but because of you, I was awake to see "Hogan's Heroes," your mother's courage and a sunrise. Those are the kinds of bargains you'll be reopening my eyes to until the day you pack for college. Already I can hear us: laughing together as the Coyote explodes. See us: scrutinizing woolly worms on the garage door. Feel us: sitting in the sun along the third-base line. You were not innocent alone. All of us saw things that night we had never seen before, felt things we had never felt before. But you were the one who led us. We waited so long, but you surprised us anyway. I came home from work exhausted and found your mother in labor on the love seat. Life's a roller coaster. It was a dizzying ride that long night; it was wonderful and excruciating. I didn't need any coffee. Your mother and I squeezed each other's hands as the pain rose and fell like waves on a seashore at 2 a.m. Although your impending arrival had gotten us a lot of attention lately, your mother and I were all alone with our wonder and fear as you made your big move. About 10:30 p.m., your mommy began squeezing my hand so hard I called the doctor. For her, I mean. I apologized for bothering him at home again -- your mother had called him a few hours earlier -- but he made no effort to make me feel less intrusive. I was told we should go to the hospital. Now. At 10:30 p.m., on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 1990. "We're having this baby tomorrow," the doctor said, his voice flat, "come hell or high water."
The liquid around you, the amniotic fluid, was almost gone. And although low water is a common place to find babies who are about to be born, you hadn't even dropped yet -- the term doctors use to describe babies who have slipped into the right position for delivery. On top of all that, you were overdue. By the time your mother felt her first labor pain, the days were beginning to seem like weeks. We had come so far only to have the last month of pregnancy seem as interminable as a pitchers duel. Fortunately, a non-stress test showed you were all right, and your mother and I were left only to ponder the happy news from that final visit to the ultrasound specialist: Our decision to paint the walls of the nursery blue was good. Your mother began to shiver soon after we arrived at the hospital. A round little nurse turned up the heat after scolding me for covering your mother with a couple of quilts I had found lying folded in different parts of the room. "We don't use the quilts as blankets," the nurse said, a look of horror contorting her face. "We have to dry-clean those." Outside the window of the hospital room, the parking garage glowed orange. The night had gotten quite cold, but the sky was clear and full of stars. I wondered if it would be dark when you were born or if the sun would be shining. About 4 a.m., the pain began making a mockery of our Lamaze classes, and your mother asked the anesthesiologist to give her an epidural. That's a spinal injection guaranteed to deaden the pain, and it allowed your mother to go to sleep. I took up residence in a vinyl recliner under the window. My ears were tuned in to the fetal heart monitor as I dozed. A couple of times earlier your heart rate plummeted. I called the nurse both times, and both times, the round one showed up, looking confident. Her face, the face that earlier had recoiled in terror at my ill-advised use of the quilts, suddenly assumed angelic features under these new, threatening circumstances. She was a friend now; fear was the enemy. The first time I called her, she strapped a vapor-filled oxygen mask onto your mother's face. The second time, she puzzled over the problem, then sought help. Other nurses and a doctor joined her in a jabbering-probing session over your mother. Their frenzy made the dream-like night suddenly seem too real. Dawn was nearly upon us when your mother began pushing. I held her hand. As the doctor entered the room, the first pale light of dawn was beginning to stream through the window. I saw the top of your head first, all covered with matted dark hair. Then your shoulders. Finally, with hardly any effort at all by anyone, your little bottom rolled through the air, and the doctor caught you in the middle of a somersault. It was 7:16 a.m. As you lay across your mother's stomach, I looked down into your wide, dark eyes. They seemed bottomless, absorbing everything, reflecting nothing. You were streaked with blood. I didn't know how long the sun had been up, but it was bright. "He's here," I said, turning my blurry gaze on your mother. "He's here, he's here." We laughed and cried at the same time, gasping in joy. Moments later, I took you in my arms, gently cradling my own lost childhood in hands that looked much older than I remembered. FALLING INTO HARM'S WAY LOUISVILLE 1991
His life remains a downward spiral, plunging through the cracks of a mental-health system that has given him no safety net. Durham's troubled, violent existence seemed to have hit bottom when he landed at Central State after being found incompetent to stand trial on an assault charge in Laurel County. But violence followed him into the hospital. On Aug. 28, 1990, hospital workers beat Durham, slamming him to the floor repeatedly, kicking him in the head and sides and breaking his arm, Durham said. His version of events is supported by a state investigator's report that said hospital personnel abused Durham. Durham's case sheds light on the largely secret world of state psychiatric hospitals. Investigations prompted by allegations of abuse are not public record, but Durham's mother, Margaret Durham, recently gave the Herald-Leader a copy of the investigator's report. Patient abuse at Kentucky's state hospitals is far from common, but it also is not rare. The state agency that governs Kentucky's three mental hospitals has investigated 139 allegations of patient abuse in the last two years and substantiated 11 of those, according to the hospitals and the state Cabinet for Human Resources. Western State Hospital in Hopkinsville was the focus of 15 investigations, two of which resulted in findings of abuse; Central State in Louisville was investigated 71 times with three findings of abuse; and Eastern State in Lexington had 53 investigations with six findings of abuse.
"I think the numbers are probably somewhat low compared to other, similar hospitals," said Dr. Donald Ralph, director of Eastern State. "One is too many, but I don't think that over the course of two years that six shows a dramatic problem." It would be unrealistic to expect perfect conduct from employees all the time, hospital officials said. The stress of the job is too great. Central State has a 34-bed secured unit filled with violent patients, many of whom are there because they have been judged incompetent to stand trial on felony charges such as murder, Executive Director George Nichols said. Many are transfers from the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center in LaGrange. Kentucky's state hospitals are populated with people who do not want to be there, said Rick Cain, a mental health advocate with the state Department of Public Advocacy. By law, people hospitalized involuntarily must be deemed mentally ill, able to benefit from treatment and are a danger to themselves or others. Hospital workers frequently must deal with being provoked, administrators said. Sometimes that leads to confrontations that end in the abuse of a patient. "In these kinds of hospitals, there's always the possibility that is going on," Ralph said. Still, state officials and hospital administrators do not tolerate abuse, no matter how slight, Ralph said. "That's probably the quickest way for an employee to get out of here." The state investigates every allegation of patient abuse, said Brad Hughes, a spokesman for the Cabinet for Human Resources. All that's required to spur an investigation is a complaint by a patient or his family to the hospital or to the state Division of Licensing and Regulation. The Division of Licensing and Regulation conducts a joint investigation with the social services department, the adult protection agency under Kentucky law, Hughes said. Hospital administrators say they promptly notify the licensing agency whenever they hear about a possible case of abuse or see that a patient has sustained a suspicious injury. "We report even a hint of abuse," Ralph said. "We report them even if we know there's nothing to it." Nichols said, "Our position is we don't have anything to hide, and in doing so, we turn in almost anything. I'd rather someone else make the decision as to whether something should be investigated." If abuse is found to have occurred, the employee responsible usually is suspended or fired, even if the abuse was minor, Ralph said. The state makes the final decision and even reprimanding an employee involved in a patient-abuse case is "a hell of a hard sell," Ralph said. "If we substantiate it, we pull out all stops to make sure it doesn't happen again." In every one of the 11 cases of abuse that have occurred since 1988, the abusive employees were disciplined, Hughes said. In most cases, the employees resigned before being disciplined, he said. In the Durham case, one employee is being disciplined and the other has resigned, Hughes said. Abuse cases are dealt with as isolated incidents, not as symptoms of a larger problem, Ralph said. If abuse occurred regularly, the state might attempt to retrain hospital employees or to hire more workers to ease the workload, Boyd said. But the number of abuse cases found in the last two years -- a number typical of two-year periods in the past -- is not seen as a problem worthy of special attention. Money is an obstacle to a top-flight state mental health system, Boyd said. Kentucky ranks among the bottom five states in per capita spending for mental health and mental retardation services, Boyd said. Unless an unusually high number of patient-abuse cases were to crop up in a short period of time, or unless there appeared to be a strong common thread running through them, it would not be worth the cost to try to change the system, he said. "I think you do have to look at the cost-benefit factor," Boyd said. But he added: "Certainly, you can't overtrain your staff." Most abuse cases involve nurses' aides, who have the least amount of training of hospital personnel who work with patients, Ralph said. The aides outnumber all other workers and, consequently, have more direct contact with patients. But the only qualifications they must meet for employment are a valid driver's license and the ability to read and write, Boyd said. Nichols said employees who work in the secured unit at Central State are trained in physical management techniques. That means they are supposed to be able to force troublesome patients safely to the floor to keep them from hurting themselves or anyone else. It's called a takedown. "The type of patient there is younger and sicker and more aggressive," Nichols said. Ralph said all employees at Eastern State eventually would complete a 12-hour training course on takedowns and on dealing emotionally with being provoked. "Sometimes, if we think someone might not be speaking kindly to patients," the employee is retrained, Ralph said. But Nichols said employees trained for work in Central State's unit for violent patients were not taught how to deal with confrontational patients. Cain said restraints had been overused at Central State's secured unit, although he said that Nichols was trying to change that. "I was concerned when I arrived," Nichols said. He thought restraints frequently were being used for the wrong reasons and kept in place too long at a time. A committee at Central State is reviewing the hospital's policy on seclusion and restraint, Nichols said. The group is expected to make a recommendation by March 1. Restraints should be used only when a patient is behaving violently or is otherwise out of control, Cain said. They should not be used as punishment, he said. "When the emergency is over, people should be let go," he said, "but we've seen time after time people being left in restraints long after the emergency is over." One man was put in restraints for five days for attacking a nurse, Cain said. "Sometimes the nurses on a unit become afraid of someone, and it's much easier to tie them up than to deal with that." Sometimes the use of restraints is a prescribed part of treatment set out in a contract the patient signs soon after being admitted, Cain said. "I don't really believe these people understand restraints can be used as long as they are sometimes," he said.
LOUISVILLE 1991
The photographs showed a man with two black eyes, stitches over his right eye, cuts on his face and a bruise behind his left ear. The X-ray showed a broken forearm. It was the first time the investigator had seen Russell Carry Durham of Lexington, a 29-year-old Army veteran who said he had been beaten by hospital workers. It was the investigator's job to determine for the record whether Durham had been beaten ...
Based on those and on interviews with hospital personnel, the investigator concluded that Durham had been beaten. Here, pieced together from the investigator's report and from an interview with Durham, is an account of what happened: Durham had spent much of that afternoon pacing the hallway outside the nursing station. "I asked (the nurse) all afternoon to go in my room to lay down," he said in an interview last week. "Then I told her I needed to go in to go to the bathroom. I used it as an excuse . . . ." The nurse later denied that Durham had asked to use the bathroom, according to the investigator's report. He asked only to go to his room so he could lie down, she said. When the nurse refused to let Durham into his room, he urinated on the floor in the hallway. "I wanted to spite her," Durham said in the interview.
Moments later, a hospital security officer entered the dining area and approached Durham to ask him to clean up the mess he had made in the hallway, another aide told the investigator. "I said, 'You can clean it up with me,' " Durham said. Durham, who has a volatile personality, was wearing a restraining device called a saddle, a leather belt with straps to hold the arms immobile. But that did not stop him from trying to kick the aide. Two more security officers came forward. The first one forced Durham to the floor in a takedown, an accepted way of forcing violent patients to the floor to keep them from hurting themselves or anyone else. One of the others scooped up Durham and slammed him to the floor. Twice. Because of the saddle, Durham was "almost totally defenseless" and had no way to break his fall with his hands, the investigator noted. "I'm not that tough," Durham hollered as he was kicked in the head and side, according to the report. A nurses' aide who did not see the incident told the investigator that she had heard Durham's arm snap when one of the aides put his knee on it to break it. She said she had seen the abusive employee "being unnecessarily rough with other residents" before. Once, he grabbed a patient by the crotch and escorted him to his room, she said. She said she thought Durham had been set up for the beating because of the confrontation with the nurses. When Durham complained to a nurse after the beating that his left arm hurt "like hell," the nurse did not record it on a chart. When it was discovered two days later that Durham's arm was broken, he was taken to a hospital in Louisville so his arm could be reset with steel pins. The scar on his left forearm is long and red. The nurse told the investigator she "felt really bad and learned a lesson about charting."
State officials and hospital administrators would not discuss the incident, saying they were prohibited from talking about individual patients. But Margaret Durham said that after her son was beaten, a hospital official told her: "Basically, these are good people. They must have just lost their temper." "You're supposed to have people here who are trained not to lose their temper," Durham's mother snapped. "I'm not proud my son's got a mental problem, but I put Russell in this position so he could get help," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "It got him help -- it got his arm broken . . . ." She has not given up on her son, but it is not easy being Russell Durham's mother. His life has been hard, filled with drugs and alcohol, instability and violence, according to court records. Durham, who grew up in Whitley County, quit school after ninth grade, and his behavior became a problem for his parents. His mother and father enlisted him in the Army. He entered the service in 1978 and began using drugs extensively, the records show. Durham got a hardship discharge in July 1980 when his father became deathly ill. Durham began a life of petty run-ins with the law, mostly for public intoxication and drunken driving. He has a jagged white scar on his chin that he got in a car wreck. Then there was the fall. In July 1981, Durham plunged mysteriously over the side of a cliff, falling more than 70 feet and crumpling to the ground just inches from the edge of U.S. 25. Nobody ever knew if he fell or was pushed, but he was drinking heavily and taking drugs, his mother said. He survived, but the doctor told Margaret Durham that her son probably suffered some brain damage. After the fall, Russell frequently checked himself in and out of Eastern State Hospital and the Veterans Affairs hospital in Lexington. Doctors said he was schizophrenic and a chronic alcohol and drug abuser. In 1989, he was charged with stealing a car in Lexington, but the charge was reduced to driving a car without permission when it was disclosed that the keys had been left in the ignition. Durham was given a two-year sentence, placed on probation and ordered to live with his mother in Whitley County, remain on medication to control his illness, continue psychiatric treatment and report to his probation officer. He did none of those things and soon was arrested.
Durham was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and was ordered to Eastern State. Eastern State transferred him to Central State because he was too aggressive and Eastern had no unit with extra security. Durham's plunge toward oblivion seemed to have been stopped. But the violence and turmoil he had known for so long reared up again in the hospital. "There's a lot of people like that," said Rick Cain, a mental health advocate with the state Department of Public Advocacy. "The system not only is not perfect, it's not very good. In a broad sense, where Russell was, where that incident happened, there historically have been some real problems." "When you put somebody in a hospital," Margaret Durham said, "you expect them to get good care -- whether it's a state or a private hospital." In December, Central State Hospital released Durham to the custody of the Fayette County sheriff. The hospital's court liaison, Paul Bock, wrote in Durham's letter of release that the patient had "received the maximum benefit from his stay." Durham is the Fayette County Detention Center serving out a 12-month sentence for probation violation that began in December. His mother is trying to get him released from jail and placed in the Veterans Affairs hospital, but that seems unlikely. The veterans hospital cannot hold patients against their will, said Judy Rittenhouse, assistant chief of medical administration services. The court would have to release Durham from his jail sentence before he could be admitted, Rittenhouse said. "That is not a feasible option," Durham's probation officer, Angela Edwards, wrote Nov. 15 in a report contained in the court record. "This officer is, however, concerned about the current limbo status of the Durham case and would like to make a recommendation to resolve this matter," the report said. Edwards recommended shortening Durham's sentence by giving him credit for time served at Central State. On Jan. 2, he was given credit for 120 days in custody.
Yüklə 1,63 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
|