Prisoner With Colon "Hanging Outside His Body" Sues Arkansas for Refusing Medical Care

Last week, a suit was filed by an Arkansas man in Saline County. He had been refused medical care even while in custody for four days, though he had a prolapsed colon "literally hanging outside his body," said his court documents, according to rt.

The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. It charged that the law enforcement officials in Saline defied the constitutional and civil rights of "former detention center detainee," Steven David Cook.

Cook was arrested on June 29, 2012, according to the lawsuit. He suffered a prolapsed colon on the same day.

"Approximately a foot of Cook's colon had inverted and was protruding out of his rectum," the suit alleged. He had been subjected to excessive "physical pain and emotional distress."

It is alleged by arktimes that Saline County "has been plagued by lawsuits and a variety of allegations about past misbehavior in the sheriff's office and by jailers in treatment of inmates at the county jail."

His lawyers point out that as Cook was not given medical attention, he was "languishing in jail, lying in feces and blood in a dirty cell, exposed to germs and bacteria of all sorts, with his colon hanging out" until four days later on July 2.

Steven Cook had been taken by the officials in Saline on charges of theft and trespassing, according to archived news reports. He told his jailers of his condition on the day he was arrested, according to the suit, and told four detention center officials, including sheriff's deputies and a physician about it.

Although all the officials agreed to send him to a hospital, Andy Gill, the assistant prosecutor attorney for Saline County, stopped them on the basis of a strange claim---that the inmate "could push his rectum inside out 'at will.'"

 "Plaintiff does not know for certain how Gill obtained the information underlying his outlandish allegations," the complaint reads in part. "Certainly, Gill had no personal knowledge of Cook's body, specifically his colon and/or rectum. In any event, Gill's assertions are and were patently false. Upon information and belief, a healthy colon cannot simply become inverted and protrude outside the human body unless there is some sort of serious medical trauma taking place. More importantly, the allegation that Cook could 'at will' cause his colon to prolapse is patently false."

The lawsuit was filed on April 21 and Cook's attorneys charged the law enforcement officials with deliberate indifference to his medical needs, violating the protection granted to him by the "Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth amendments to the US Constitution".

He is now asking for compensatory and punitive damages for the "violations, cruel and unusual punishment, permanent injury and emotional pain and suffering."