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On December 9, Rae Haltzman, 65, with hypertension, began to vomit but was unable to seek help. She laid down near the locked door of the visitation room with a blanket “waiting for someone to come,” she wrote in a statement filed with the court. When she spotted a psychologist leaving the building, “I knocked on the door and asked him to get a doctor.
Ms. Haltzman was ultimately hospitalized for nine days. After being released on December 18, she was placed alone in a locked room “which is usually used for suicide monitoring or drug withdrawal cases,” she wrote. She had stayed there until January 2, although the hospital infectious disease specialist had said there was no need for her to be isolated.
“I had panic attacks after being left alone in the room for so long,” she said. “I felt like I was being punished all the time for getting sick.”
Another inmate, Denise Bonfilio, also fell seriously ill in the visiting room of the men’s prison. Her lips turned blue and she was sent to the hospital. She was found to be dehydrated but was not admitted and returned to the bedroom.
Due to her food allergies, Ms Bonfilio often could not eat the meals provided to her, which may have contributed to her dehydration. In an interview, she described the treatment in the isolation room as “physically and emotionally brutal”.
“It was like survival of the fittest,” Ms. Bonfilio said.
The detainees were to order the items they needed from the commissioner, recalled Ms Torres, who was confined to her home on December 23. “We literally bought Halls, ibuprofen, and hot tea,” she said.
“We were all scared,” Ms. Spagnardi said. “We all thought we were going to die there, and no one would know until they count.”
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