Tortured for Child Support Arrears, He Didn’t Owe, pts 3 & 4

David A. Bardes recalls April 2006 when he almost died in a Charleston County jail.  Put there for child support, he was left in a hypothermic chamber for over 30 hours.

Part one

Part two

Part three

“I began to lose parts of my memory. I was trying to “think” of things and events to keep my brain alive, but each time I thought of something it would disappear with a snap. I was losing memories at an increasing pace. I knew the end was near and I thought of my two children.

Then the memory of my son disappeared and my last thought of my life was of my daughter. I held onto my daughter until the end. My respirations were shallow and my heartbeats had slowed. I slipped into hypothermic coma, a death-like condition that occurs before bodily death.”

Left for two days without food, water and bedding, he says there were four changes of the guard who kept him locked in that cold cell, noting, “each made the decision, or was given orders, to not let me out.”  On the third day, April 5, at 3:30 am Bardes was saved.  He describes how two unknown sheriff deputies rescued him.

“They had badges on. It was dark, but I was brought back from the dead with a faint voice saying over and over again, “What is your name? Who are you?” I could not answer them because I did not know.

One was on top of me with his hand around my neck, as if he were taking a pulse. The other said, “Shit, we have to get him out of here.” Someone had removed my ID armband, why I have no idea. The one guy came back and told me my name was David Bardes; it did not register. I was totally out of it, but still alive, barely.”

Bardes was taken to an older area, placed on a floor mat and covered with a blanket.  At 6:00 am he had new guards who didn’t know what happened early.  Apparently, Bardes says, he was causing a problem because he didn’t know his name or have his ID armband, was in street clothes, and he couldn’t stand or move his limbs.

“As I was on the ground the guards beat me and kicked me with their boots. They kicked me in the head, arms, torso, and legs. They kept saying “Get up! Stand up,! What is your name?” A large man reached down and grabbed me under the arms and hoisted me into the air and said, ‘Stand up!’”

Eventually the guards realized that something was wrong and got a wheel chair.   Bardes remembers a female guard’s voice saying, “I’ll tazer yo ass, and then we see whoz getz in dat chair.”

A large male guard strapped him in and he was taken to the hospital ward.  But things didn’t improve.  They put a suicide gown on Bardes and dropped him onto the floor of a suicide watch room.

“I was wracked with the pain of warming up quickly. They left me in pain on the floor for another day. As I lay on the floor of the suicide watch room still alive, my body was technically in critical condition. I was suffering from ventricular tachycardia and sky high blood pressure.

Just as many victims die from cold during the warming up phase. The heart can’t take it and many die from heart failure. I was not out of the woods; not by any means. My heart was pounding quick beats in my chest. I could feel my heart stressing.”

Bardes was then visted by a male nurse who took his blood pressure and checked his pulse and temperature while Bardes told him what had happened.  He says at that point things became frantic.

“He freaked out and said to me, “Stay right there, I will get you the help you need.” He ran down the hallway.

Someone came back with a form for me to sign. I could not see the form without my glasses. I told them to get me to the hospital. I assumed the form was some kind of liability release, but the man would not tell me what it was for. I hesitated and he left.

A few minutes later, another man came and begged for me to sign the form. In hindsight, I should have signed it and let them take me to the hospital, but I was scared, all alone, and in terrible pain. The man said, “You’ll be sorry,” and he left. They dumped me back on the floor of the suicide watch room to wither in my pain and agony.”

Part four

Torture in jail is not as rare as one might suspect.  David A. Bardes is just one of tens of thousands who responded when True Equality Network asked the question, “Were you tortured while incarcerated?”

As he lay in the jail’s suicide watch room Bardes took an inventory of his body parts.

“My right leg was charlie-horsed in pain and not working that well, my right forearm was the same way, my left index finger was not responding, and I could not keep my left eyelid open. I also had little feeling from the waist downward. My body’s nervous system was out of whack and kept sending signals to my nerve nodes causing involuntary muscle spasms. My brain was coming back on line and was re-programming itself to see if it had command of all of the body’s various functions.”

The medical staff knew they had a problem.  A ‘Refusal Form’ was filled out, and every single worker signed it as witnesses. One nurse even signed it twice, Bardes says, because she was so “freaked out.”  He adds, “They went to great lengths to cover their liability should I have died while in their care.”

After five days they released him from suicide watch.  Bardes spent one night in a hospital bed and the next day was transferred downstairs to the “medical observation unit.”  He then had his mugshot taken and was issued a prison uniform and content kit, all which should have been done when he first arrived.

Bardes was placed in a cell with a man he describes as “a violent deaf mute lunatic.”  It took his family 73 days to negotiate his way out of jail.  Bardes even had to agree to leave the state of South Carolina forever.

Authorities wouldn’t let him buy a bus ticket.  Bardes says he was escorted to the airport and observed until he boarded the plane out of state.  He had to sign a form stating he wouldn’t sue anyone over the incident, which he says doesn’t apply since he agreed while under duress.

Today Bardes has his case in Federal court.  (#02:08-487-PMD-RSC)  He’s been litigating the case pro se for about 20 months.  Most of the defendants were put aside, not due to a lack of responsibility, but because of immunity.  Not so for Sheriff James Al Cannon.

Bardes has lingering physical and psychological problems due to the torture.

“The first two PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) attacks wound up with me in the emergency room.  Today the attacks come in waves, some start with shaking of the hands, followed by intense abdominal pains. I take a pill and ride out the attacks curled up in the fetal position on my bed until the symptoms subside. They last for about three hours. The worse attacks last all day and include horrible flashbacks.

I suffer from Major Depression, Acute Anxiety Disorder, and PTSD. I am balanced on medication. Both my psychologist and my psychiatrist say I am doing well for what I have been through. I walk with a slight limp, have permanent memory losses, and have memory lapses during conversations, but that may be caused by the medication.

The insidious thing about hypothermia as a torture technique is that if you don’t die from it, you physically recover almost 100%, that’s almost 100%. The psychological damage, however, far overshadows any physical effects. I have lifelong psychological damage.”

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• Family court documentary SUPPORT? at Atlanta film fest this weekend
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Tags: Child Support & Custody, david a bardes, torture

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Child Support & Custody, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 609 views | Trackback | Print this page |

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