Taking care

My co-workers in Corrections were incredibly generous people.  They were always ready to step in an help each other out.  One officer had a child who was very sick.  She faced the possibility of a bone marrow transplant.  The family all tested to be donors, but they were all incompatible.  When her dad, who worked at Gus Harrison Facility, asked his co-workers to test, something like 200 people volunteered.  Fortunately, the child got better and did not need the procedure.  Staff was also humane to the prisoners for the most part.  My hearing investigator at Gus Harrison was like that.  She had an old guy come over for an interview.  It was late fall and he had no coat.  He said it was lost or stolen or something.  She took him right over to the quartermaster and got a coat issued.  She muttered to herself that an old man can't go without a coat with winter right around the corner.  I teased her, told her she was getting soft.  She snapped at me, that she was not, she got the old man what he had coming.  ( True but she didn't have to go out of her way. )
My hearing investigator Stan at Huron Valley Facility told me about a young guy there who had to fend off predators and bullies.  He was in the unit for developmentally delayed prisoners.  Stan intervened to reduce access from some of the dangerous prisoners.
I had a guy come in for a hearing for failing to report to work.  He said he couldn't work because his knee was messed up, causing a lot of pain and he couldn't stand on it for very long.  I asked him a few questions about it.  His work record was good, he had always reported before this.  The officer in the room to monitor hearings for the day had supervised work details.  She asked if we could look at his knee.  He pulled up his pant leg.  It was pretty swollen.  I asked if he had sent a health care request and he said yes.  I asked him if the knee was getting worse, he said yes.  I asked him if it was red or warm.  He said yes to both.  At this point, I became very concerned because infection seemed very likely. I asked him if he had reported these symptoms in his health care request.  He said no.  I sent him back to his unit and told him to go to his unit officer to ask for a pass to health care.  Then I called the unit and told the officer he needed to make sure that health care was informed that the prisoner had redness and inflammation in the knee.  The prisoner got sent over right away.  A couple of days later, I exited the gates and saw this prisoner being escorted back from a medical run.  He had an IV hooked up.  I asked him about it and he said he was getting antibiotics.  I guess it was serious.