Shawn Fisher is a prisoner at Old Colony Correctional in Massachusetts. I discovered he had COVID on December 15th. Here is what he wrote to me and has continued to write as he reveals how unprepared OCCC was for a COVID outbreak in spite of having months to prepare. Shawn’s story reveals how frightening and infuriating it is for a prisoner to be treated with the kind of cruelty that is clearly happening in our prisons with unspecialized practitioners attempting to handle COVID instead of releasing prisoners to homes and familiies where they can be cared for. SCROLL DOWN FOR NEWEST INFO
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SHAWN FISHER on 12/15/2020 6:38:16 PM wrote
Today we were locked down for COVID-19 testing. On Sunday from the 7-3 shift we were locked down because a staff member tested positive. so they told all the staff who worked with him to stay home which left the prison understaffed. That guard is the Typhoid Mary of Bridgewater. We’re calling him COVID Charlie.
I got my results and I tested positive. Tito [Shawn’s cellie] did not. I will let you know more. hugs and love
12/16/20
I was placed in segregation with 19 other guys. Those who tested positive were placed in double cells. They placed me in a cell with a 61 year old man who is diabetic and has heart problems. Now what happens if his test was a false negative? You placed a high risk person with serious health issues in with someone else who tested positive. It doesn’t make sense. We all should have been in single cells or placed with our cellmates.
Tito tested negative and is being quarantined on the tier too. My symptoms are not bad. Muscle aches and trouble breathing. Thank God for my inhaler!!! But my new cellmate has no symptoms so I hope he doesn’t get sick or maybe he’s asymptomatic.
Either way this sucks. All we have in the cell is a blanket. No sheets and no pillow! Trying to sleep like that was the worst. I think I slept better in a police station!! To make matters worse the toilet flushes once every 5 minutes if you flush more than that the toilet will not flush. So we had poop sitting in the toilet for 15 minutes before a guard came by and asked him to reset the toilet. What a horrible situation.
12/17/20
What a crap show. After several guys kicked their doors around 9:30 they let the guys who live in the unit go to their cells and grab essential items. But they skipped over Tito so he did something and he got gassed. I’ll know more tomorrow Everyone is choking. But my heart feels.for Tito right now. So unnecessary. Just let him grab his stuff.
12/17/20
They just moved us all out of the hole and into a regular unit. They cleared out a whole tier just to move us here. Its 9:00 at night and almost all of DO NOT have a mattress for the night.
As a result they did not give us showers.
We spoke to someone today who said and i quote, “They’re working on a plan.”
It’s understandable since this just popped up out of nowhere and caught them by surprise. To bad they didn’t have months to prepare. Imagine if they had a head start from say…..March or April!?!!!
Nurses are taking vitals. An NP did rounds, mental health and the caseworker did rounds. But no one had any answers about showers or getting some of the guys their property. As for myself I only have the.clothes on my back. sweat pants and shirt. T shirt 2 boxers and 2 socks. NO towel.
12/18/20
As of now there are 19 guys all on this tier but not all have it. Some were quarantined because they lived with someone who tested positive. One is quarantined because he texted someone ABOUT the symptoms, another because he asked for an aspirin for a headache.
Everyone now has their property, beds, pillows and bedrolls.
Some got it bad. Some got all the symptoms. I didn’t get that sick. My temp never went over 99.1.Still sweating and cold if that makes any sense. Sleeping as much as possible.
Alls well today. They offered us laundry but without any clothes to wear while a pair gets washed I opted to clean my sweat suit by hand.
12/19/20
Both my cellmate and I were confirmed positive, Tito was NOW told his test was positive. Two guys across from us were confirmed as were three others. That’s a total of 8 confirmed cases that I am 100% about. I was told by the nurse we are quarantined for 10 days with 24hrs of no high temp before we are to be released.
Today my cellie has no taste. They’re letting us out for 30 minutes to shower and talk on the phone. They brought another guy in last night cause his cellmate had a temperature. They are going to extremes…The problem is if they don’t use some discernment. I’m afraid guys will not confide about their symptoms Out of fear of quarantine. So they need to be a lot smarter about this. Quarantining a guy cause he emailed someone “what the symptoms of COVID 19 are” is not a smart way to handle this.
12/20/20
Well my suspicion may be true. Two more from this unit are sick. One WS sick so bad they took him at 2 am and he hasn’t been seen since. Our tier time ended up being at 10:50 pm and medication that is usually passed out at 8pm came around at midnight. That’s been the theme for the last couple days. Tthey are so behind in doing things that when they pass out our meals they are ice cold!! I kid you not. I got my afternoon meds at 2:30 yesterday. Before I used to get them at 1pm.
Everything is being run backwards. They even sent Tito back to segregation so they could put a quarantine in his cell. Yes. They moved him back because they wanted his cell for someone else to quarantine! They did it to someone else too. Ridiculous. It smells of being retaliation for the other day. Guys are sick, and they treat us as if it’s a normal day. Move here, move back, tier time at 10pm.,move sick men into a unit with 60 unsick men… FOOLS.
12/21/20
How’s this for a stunning admission? “We messed up.” A person in charge here at OCCC came by and made that statement while answering some questions during his rounds. From now on “all quarantine inmates will go to segregation.” They never should have put us back in a unit anyway.
Seg is better suited for quarantine. The conditions suck, no TV or property but its only for 10 days.
Today they let us out at 7pm for rec. Much more appropriate, however, no one answered the call. Also, dinner was delivered warm. This block officer working knows how to run a unit! There are more guys who tested positive. Some are really sick but absent a test for confirmation I’m not sure it will count as a COVID 19 infection.
12/22/20
Even after I told you what the captain said about “We messed up,” they doubled down. They moved everyone from the other tier to another unit. I guess moving men to seg is now a no go. Everyday they keep changing their minds.
Tonight has been an absolute crap show. Everyone has trash in their cell from breakfast, lunch and dinner. Meds are coming around way late at 11:30pm and a few of the guards are copping attitudes which is only inflaming tempers. This is a complete disaster in here. I cannot understate enough how unprepared and completely lost this prison is right now. In all my 27 years in prison I’ve never seen a prison this clueless. Even the guards are shaking their heads in confusion. Its so bad and disruptive in here that when the guard picked up trash at 11:40 he had 2 cans of gas in his pocket!!
That’s how dysfunctional this prison is right now.
As for me I have no symptoms but I am having night sweats. That sucks because I only have one T-shirt! I am sleeping a lot. The muscle aches are over and I never lost my sense of smell or taste. But I am sleeping as much as I can to pass the time and get better. This is stressful only because of the uncertainty of my property and where they’re moving me when this is over.
!2/23/20
What did I tell you. There are guys in population with symptoms but are hiding it because they don’t want to deal with his crap show. Yet, inmates are getting moved all over the prison spreading the virus everywhere. They’re still running the prison like normal calling guys for work, yard…. These people are so so freakin incompetent.
Everyone I spoke to said there are lots of people in the other units who are sick but hiding it. Some of the men in here asked me to tell you that if someone dies in this prison because of this incompetence please rally the troops to make sure someone is held responsible.
They’re clearing out the remaining 30 guys out of this unit. Which will make this a COVID 19 unit. Only problem is COVID 19 is not contained to this unit. It’s already in general population. All iI can say is WOW!
12/25/20
We’re now Locked in for three days. The rest of the prison is out. But Captain Sousa who HATES inmates has override authority and uses it in every sadistic possible way. So today’s Christmas and there is no tier time, showers or phones for the COVID 19 unit. Imagine what MORE they would do to us if they knew they could get and away with it?
12/31/20
I’m out of he COVID 19 unit and they put me in the mental health unit. Arrggh. It’s temporary until they clear out the COVID 19 unit (A-3). Right now there’s 74 people in A-3!! Rumor is they will be testing again next week.
1/13/21
I have confirmed 3 deaths.
As for the discrepancy in deaths it may come down to where you’re housed in his facility. There are definitely, two deaths in OCCC. The third MAY be classified under Bridgewater State Hospital. The unit A1 exclusively houses those classified” as state hospital inmates. So although they’re on our count and live at OCCC in the same prison they’re classification status may put their death under a different jurisdiction. That’s my guess.
The fourth death may be not a death but a miracle recovery. One man is back. What a fighter! He’s battling cancer and it’s kicking his ass then he catches COVID-19 and gets put in a medically induced coma. Yet, still defies the odds and continues to fight.
He’s up in the HSU now. Good for him. They say “he doesn’t look good, but he’s upright”. God bless him.
Another DOC number that can’t be accurate is positive test results. For example,
1. Guys are sick but not reporting it.
2. Only If YOU REPORT in general population you’re sick, they test you. Otherwise you’re not tested and not counted OFFICIALLY as being sick. When i was over there in the sick unit, there were quite a few guys in A3 who were never tested but became sick while in A3. But since they were never tested, it didn’t count.
Last report I got was that there were 15 guys in A3 (down from 74) who are sick. But they’re moving guys back to A3 who were never sick or have been cleared. Not sure the reasoning or the plan but people are moving back. The two guys they moved over there to clean the showers….tested positive!!! DUH didn’t see that coming!?!?!