On January 6, an inmate at “low-security” FCI Thomson, awakened after the last roving check at 3 a.m. and before the doors opened at 6, with all the signs of a heart attack. The panic buttons located in the cells do not work. When the doors finally opened, he walked himself to the Health Services Department some 200 yards away in another building. He told the staff that he was having a heart attack. While one of the staff members hooked him up to an EKG, the other nurse told him to fill out a sick call form so that the prison could deduct $2 from his account to pay for his medical visit. After the nurse reviewed the EKG strip, she determined that he was correct and was in fact having a cardiac emergency. As has been widely accepted by mainstream medicine for decades, the :first hour after a heart attack is the golden hour.” After that, chances of survival drop dramatically. Shortly after the strip was analyzed, the facility’s primary medical provider (a migraine specialist by training) authorized the first of four nitro shots to help ease his symptoms. After almost an hour and a half, the ambulance finally arrived and he was driven to the nearest hospital some 20 miles away.
Upon arrival about 40 minutes later, the inmate and his escorts were advised that the hospital had no cardiologist on staff and no cardiac catheter lab. All the team there could do was check his enzyme levels and transfer him to a facility that could provide adequate care. He was placed on a nitro IV drip to try to alleviate his extreme chest and arm pain and was sent off. Five hours after the cardiac event began, the patient still had received no direct treatment.
A call to a sister hospital found no open beds. What a great area for a federal prison with hundreds of older and under-nourished inmates! Finally, an open bed was located that could treat his “cardiac event.” The patient was dispatched again for a 60-minute drive to a hospital in Sterling, IL.
Upon arrival the patient was immediately taken to a cardiac catheter lab for an angiogram. He then had seven stents inserted to restore stable heart function. At that time, it was about 12 hours after his heart attack.