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"I haven't gotten up for 500 days": the terrifying story of a paralyzed prisoner
Prisons are, frankly speaking, a bad place for the rehabilitation of people with disabilities, especially those who are bedridden. And although the colony seems to be doing everything possible to ease the lot of some prisoners, things are, frankly speaking, not going very well. The colonies do not have the conditions for people to live on a bed.
Sorry for the details, but our character hides his needs. He hasn't washed for several months. At the same time, the Medical Committee of the Federal Penitentiary Service does not recognize the presence of any disease that would prevent him from serving his sentence.
Sergey Savchenko's current conviction is his second. He was first jailed in 1997. Then, together with others, he "robbed" a visiting Azerbaijani of a debt. The court sentenced him to 14 years in prison, but after serving half of his sentence, Savchenko was transferred to a penal colony and forced to work. (This is an example of how the "social elevator" works: it decreases depending on the prisoner's behavior.)
Upon his release, he immediately married a girl he had met before his arrest and who had been waiting for him for many years. Together they opened a bar and a hookah bar. And soon a child was born. Unfortunately, the baby was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. In the first years, there was enough money for treatment, the child was taken to China and Israel, and over time, he was not much different in development from his peers and even began to go to school. weapons). But a second misfortune happened. Sergey learned about his serious illness. It happened by accident. While playing sports, I felt as if something had happened to my leg. I took tests and it turned out that I had congenital arthrosis of the hip joint. It was just that the disease was in a "dormant" state until a certain point. However, as soon as the disease appears, it usually begins to progress rapidly. This is exactly what happened to Sergey. A person can maintain some degree of normality as long as he has such an opportunity. Then the pandemic broke out, and the bars closed. In short, Sergey went broke. Instead of quality treatment, only strong painkillers were left. But he said he was more worried about his child than himself.
"We couldn't get him into treatment, and he started to have developmental delays," Sergei said (the public defender relayed my questions and answers to him). "We urgently needed 250,000 rubles to conduct the investigation. So, I committed a crime... coercion was required. So, for 10 years after his first release, I got by without any "drive."
Who knows if this is true or not? It sounds like an excuse for a crime. In reality, a robbery is taking place, committed by a group of people. The bandits, including Sergey, attacked a microcredit office and stole 3.5 million rubles from it. During his arrest, Sergey was brutally beaten by special forces officers, as a result of which he had to spend two weeks in a temporary detention facility, never being able to regain consciousness. Savchenko was examined in the pretrial detention facility. And a commission of civilian doctors recognized that he had diseases that excluded his detention (the list of these diseases is provided for by government decree No. 3). The court released the man on bail. He attended the trial in person, but on crutches.
Sergey says: "I tried to treat myself at home. - But it didn't help much. Necrosis set in. I mostly moved around with the help of a walker. We had to equip each room with railings and other devices.
Nevertheless, the court sentenced Savchenko to 6.5 years of imprisonment. Then perhaps it is worth addressing the problem. PP No. Release from custody under Art. 3 does not mean that the convicted person is automatically released from punishment. And Article 81 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Release from punishment due to illness" is applied only when a person is in prison. For those who suffered from serious illnesses before the sentence was passed, Government Resolution No. 54 provides a list of illnesses for which the punishment cannot be carried out.
But here's the secret. Testing is only done by medical commissions of federal prisons and prison hospitals. Sick defendants who were not in pretrial detention before sentencing (on bail, under house arrest, or in private clinics) are not subject to testing under Resolution No. 54. That is, such a person must first be sent to prison and "activated." Unfortunately, this process takes a long time and can be very difficult (transporting sick prisoners at each stage), so not everyone will survive. This is what human rights activists in private hospitals say: PP No. 1. This is why we demand the creation of Committee 54 and legislative support for its work.
During transport in a paddy wagon, Sergei slipped and fell right under the vehicle. From that moment on, he says, he was unable to move. Even after six months in a prison hospital, the situation did not improve.
"I was lying there from February to August out of stupidity," says Sergey. - And in August I went to Correctional Colony No. 1 in the Yaroslavl Region. I was transferred to 2. The doctor looked at me and asked, "How are you going to spend your time?" I replied, "I will if I can." He replied, "Take your crutches and walk." He threatened to send me to a psychiatric hospital if I didn't wake up. But even if I tried to get up, I wouldn't be able to. In short, they considered me a fraud and installed 24-hour video surveillance on me. They didn't lock me in the barracks. I was in the colony's isolation ward. The doctors there hardly even visited me. Some prisoners came, and one performed a "duck" and the other gave me an injection. Then for some reason they transferred me to the 3rd correctional center, and I remain there to this day. I am lying in the infirmary of the ward. There is another sick prisoner here, and I help. I can't take care of myself. Only one arm works, and my leg doesn't move at all and is numb. The men cut my nails and hurt me badly, but I didn't even feel pain. There is no "duck", so I go to the bathroom with a bottle and a plate. You are not washed, but you wipe your body with a wet napkin.
During another transfer to the prison hospital, the region's chief traumatologist, Professor Alexander Degtyarev, examined the patient and confirmed the presence of a severe progressive disease. Sergei was declared disabled, an individual rehabilitation program was developed, he was given a wheelchair (but how could he sit in it without assistance?) and put on the waiting list for a hip replacement operation. However, the professor warned that the operation could not be performed without rehabilitation. After all, after more than two years of lying down, Sergei's muscles had practically atrophied, and even with new joints, he could not get up. And rehabilitation includes exercise therapy, massage, electrical stimulation of the limbs, etc. Who would do all this in a colony?!
According to Sergei Baburkin, director of the Yaroslavl Region Human Rights Department, the colony administration has agreed to allow civilian specialists into the colony. Families can hire them. However, the average cost of one massage session in the region is 2,000 rubles, and not all massage therapists agree to go to the colony.
Baburkin agrees that it is better to do all this freely. However, for some reason the prison medical commission does not recognize "bedridden" diseases that do not lead to sentencing. There have already been several trials, the last of which overturned the decision to refuse. At one of the court hearings, the head of the medical department admitted that he did not consider Savchenko's lying position to be either a "staged action" (simulation) or "psychosophy" (he convinced himself that he could not walk).
And the man just lies and lies. He continues his "experiment". During this time, he has not been able to hug his sick son even once. Even his lawyer approached him "with a fight" on September 6. Sergei was taken on a stretcher to his room for a long visit.