Her 37-year-old son had sepsis, kidney failure, and had been intubated due to respiratory failure caused by Covid-19 in a Texas prison, according to his mother in correspondence with WAR. She heard about his severe illness only after he had been taken by ambulance to an ICU. Her son is an inmate at Beaumont (Texas) Low Security Federal Correction Institution. There have been reports of 500 Covid-19 cases at this facility at the time of her writing in Summer 2020.
The first news of his agonizing illness came from his roommate who heard her son’s pained screams throughout the night before. “Your son and my best friend is very sick,” he told her as he choked back tears. She contacted the Texas prison hospital liaison and was informed her son was taken to intensive care. The next medical intervention planned was dialysis, and there was no next step planned after that. He told her he would contact the Warden to inform him of her call and get permission to update her on her son’s condition.
Your son and my best friend is very sick
She called the Chaplain next about seeing her son, which was never going to happen. The Chaplain knew her son very well and said, of course. He never made the call back she was expecting to make arrangements. Ultimately, the prison hospital liaison called to tell her no one was being permitted to visit hospitals in East Texas.
She ends her correspondence woefully as she describes her attempts to make arrangements for a Rabbi to see her son before dying. No one has responded despite so many calls during the past 24 hours. “I just picture my baby hooked up to all those damn machines with one wrist cuffed to the bed,” a predicament she is certain her son would not want to continue. “I just want my baby at peace . . . . I just need a Rabbi to get there now. My son would want that.”