A 21-year-old man that was left paralyzed after being tackled by prison guards has received $17.5 million in a massive payout.
During a strip search on April 2, 2020, state correctional officers in Chillicothe Correctional Institution alleged they saw Seth Fletcher with a cigarette that also contained drugs.
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said that Fletcher was then handcuffed and then escorted to the segregated housing unit.
However, while en route, he was tackled to the ground.
He suffered a severe spinal cord injury.
Guards then picked him up by the arms and legs faced down and carried him to the cliic.
Neither of the guards took his complaints of not being able to move or feeling his legs, even in dropping him several times after the injury.
According to the internal investigation, a guard poured water into Fletcher’s mouth and up his nose when he was unable to get himself a drink.
Acting Capt. Ta-Rance White checked on Fletcher, who said he could not move, however, it was not until the next morning that he was brought to the hospital.
According to reports, psychologist Eric Anderson was the one that told the authorities that he would need to be brought to a hospital.
He was sent to the Ohio State Wexner Medical Centre for emergency spinal surgery.
Garret Osbon, an ex-officer that resigned after the lawsuit of Fletcher, said in text messages that they water boarded him and broke his nose.
He also mentioned that none of those things were reported.
He added:
The dude I broke his nose is now paralyzed with a broken neck, and they say his face looks like he had been dropped and dragged through concrete, LMAO’ and ‘It feels good to know that I played a small part in paralysing a cho, LMAO’.
Fletcher was sentenced to two years for pandering sexually-oriented materials that involved minors.
His attorneys alleged that the video he made with his girlfriend was consensual.
He filed the lawsuit against the prison staff last year.
Since then, state prisons department has fired three people and issued one-day working suspensions to two staff members involved.
6 others retired and one took medical retirement.
April Jacobsen, the mother of Fletcher, said that the money will be going towards adapting her home to be wheelchair accessible and caring for her son.