Man was kept in Kansas prison cell with men who had COVID. Now he has it, mom says

Michelle Orton, an educator in Wichita, said her son, a prisoner at the Lansing Correctional Facility in eastern Kansas, asked to be moved after two of his cellmates tested positive for COVID-19.

His request was not granted, she said, and 11 days later he tested positive for the virus.

More than two years into the pandemic, the state hasn’t done enough to protect her son from COVID-19, Orton said Monday.

On July 11, Orton’s son told her that two of the four prisoners in his cell had tested positive for COVID-19. Her son asked to be placed in a different cell than the infected men, fearing that he’d catch the virus too. Orton asked that her son not be named in the newspaper, out of fear of retaliation against him in the prison.

On July 22, he sent a message to his sister, Madison Orton, saying he tested positive after days of testing negative. He’s now experiencing flu-like symptoms, such as a cough and congestion, she said. He said the fourth person in his cell is still testing negative and has also not been moved.

“He could not hardly speak yesterday; he is so full of anxiety,” Michelle Orton said after talking with her son over the phone Sunday.

“They’re not doing anything for me, Mom,” he told her.

He doesn’t have any underlying conditions that would physically make COVID more dangerous for him, his mother said, adding that her son, an Army veteran, has PTSD and other mental health struggles that are worsened by having to stay in his cell for longer stretches of time due to his COVID infection.

“Being in that environment is not good for him and the lack of communication just exacerbates all that,” she said, adding that the prison has not answered her son’s questions about how long he would need to be in close quarters with his infected cellmates, prior to his own infection.

Officials from the Kansas Department of Corrections and Lansing did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

As of Friday, 1,398 Lansing prisoners and 265 staff have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to KDOC.

It’s unclear exactly how many Lansing prisoners had active COVID cases as of Monday. KDOC’s website reports zero current cases among inmates at Lansing as of Thursday.

Orton’s family’s fears echo stories shared across the country by prisoners and their loved ones during the pandemic.

In the Kansas Department of Corrections, 17 prisoners and six staff members have died from the virus. Lansing has had the most prisoner deaths, with six.

In the first months of the pandemic, Lansing prison was listed in Kansas public health information as the largest source of cases in the state. In June 2020, The prison was the 14th largest known cluster of cases in the United States at the time, according to the New York Times.

“We just know that these people are supposed to be being protected,” Michelle Orton said. “Whether they’re criminals or not, they still need to have the state protection.”

In a letter sent to residents and family members on July 13, KDOC Secretary Jeff Zmuda said after a window of reprieve from outbreaks, some prisons were starting to see an increase in COVID infections as the BA.5 COVID variant spread across the region.

Zmuda said KDOC’s COVID mitigation strategies are coordinated with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

“While a few positive cases can quickly change our level of response and the type of mitigation strategies currently in use, those strategies are not random or unplanned as sometimes a rapid change in circumstances can feel,” he wrote.