This story was told by a person incarcerated at New Folsom.
Caller: But they took me by force and put me in a quarantine section, and I was quarantined for 14 days. They came every day, and they was giving us COVID tests every day, a little swab in the nose, and things like that. They wouldn’t let us use the phone, you know, we was – we was completely like quarantine, like to the serious, most serious extent.
So, you know, so now I’m thinking, you know, “Something’s going on.” You know, “This might be my last day. I might die from COVID,” you know because I was dealing with a lot of things going on. On TV that we used to see, you know, that was connected to COVID. People dying especially elderly people.
But you know I’m pretty healthy, you know, I work out every day, I’m muscular, I’m built like an athlete. So, I’m thinking, you know, “Maybe,” you know, “COVID might not hurt me too bad.” But I got through it, and you know, they gave me some medication and whatnot to strengthen my immune system.
They didn’t even have Moderna and Pfizer and all that stuff out at the time. They were just giving us medication to strengthen our immune system. So I made it through, I made it through the quarantine period, and then they kicked me back out to the regular housing unit.
So when I get back out to the regular housing unit, I see my celly, and I say, “Man, what’s going on, man? How you been – how you been?” He’s like, “Man, what happened to you?” I said, “Man, they put me in quarantine because of COVID because they said that you had it.”
He was like – he was like, “Yeah, man. They – they put me” I guess they had an IV in him or something like that. And you know they was, you know, treating him in the outpatient unit. He was like – he was like, “Yeah, man, if it wasn’t for you, the nurse said that. You told me to; you told her to check up on me. And you know, they call me down here and come to find out I had COVID. I was suffering from symptoms.”
He was like, “They told me if it wasn’t for” me, “Telling her to check up on checkup on me. I probably could have died ’cause, you know, “I wasn’t trying to,” you know, “I didn’t know what was going on with me, and,” you know, “And I was kind of,” you know, “Being” you know “Ignorant to,” you know “My health. And I probably would have died,” you know, “My respiratory ’cause I’m old.
You know, “My respiratory would have just failed.” He’s like, “Weren’t for you, I probably would have died.” I’m like, “Wow,” you know, and yeah, you know, is you know that’s – that’s, that type of story makes me feel good because, you know, because usually in here it’s every man for himself, you know. Guys don’t really care about each other, you know. Everybody has an angle with each other, you know.
It’s pretty much, you know, don’t nobody care about each other. That’s you know, it’s prison that’s just how it is, you know is you know, it’s survival of the fittest. But I have enough benevolence in my heart to, you know, constantly observe another person and see and actually notice a change in their behavior, and you know, you know, just something’s wrong. I knew something was wrong.
