On December 9, Rae Haltzman, who is 65 and has high blood pressure, started vomiting but could not call for help. She lay down at the closed door of the visiting room with a blanket ‘waiting for someone to come’, she wrote in a statement submitted to the court. When she saw a psychologist leaving the building, “I knocked on the door and asked him to get a doctor.”
Me. Haltzman was eventually hospitalized for nine days. After being discharged on December 18, she was placed alone in a locked room “commonly used for suicide guards, or for drug withdrawals,” she wrote. She was kept there until January 2, although the specialist in the hospital said it was not necessary for her to be isolated.
“I had panic attacks for being alone in the room for so long,” she said. “I felt punished all the time because I got sick.”
Another prisoner, Denise Bonfilio, also became very ill in the visiting room of the men’s prison. Her lips turned blue and she was sent to hospital. She was found to be dehydrated but not allowed, and she returned to the room.
Because of her food allergy, Ms. Bonfilio did not eat the meals provided, which may have contributed to her dehydration. In an interview, she described the treatment in the isolation room as ‘physically and emotionally cruel’.
“It was like survival of the fittest,” she said. Bonfilio said.
The prisoners had to order the necessities from the commissioner, said Mrs. Torres, who received home custody on Dec. 23, was granted. “We literally bought Halls, ibuprofen and hot tea,” she said.
“We were all scared,” she said. Spagnardi said. “We all thought we would die there, and no one would know until we counted.”