Nursing Story. Would You Survive a Rape?

We talk about rape as just a four-letter word but as you read down this story, it might change how you look at this four-letter word. I am sure this story will also make you have special respect for nurses and what they go through every day. Nursing careers involves mental, physical and deep emotional content that only a few have an idea. How about AIDS and HIV and rape? Depression, suicide and all sorts of illnesses? Are you ready to read on? Ok.

Every time you wake up and see the sun coming up, say a prayer and thank your creator that you are up and well. I have been holding this story for a while now but it keeps burning deep in my veins and throbbing my vocal cords to tell it out and today, I decided to tell it, though not in to the true details.

As a registered nurse, I am going to tell you a true story that is intense enough to make your emotions and anger to catapult. I once took my day assignment and I had this patient who was wheelchair ridden and as usual, I started with assessment for the basic needs and pain. This was a young man at a tender age of mid 20’s and I was interested to know how he ended in wheelchair. Indeed, he was in pain, much more pain than any medicine out there could cure.

I will use “Gamma” as his name for confidentiality reasons. Gamma got involved in a self-employment business, selling subscription magazines where he made a commission per every subscription brought in to his mother company. He went from door to door selling these magazines and had built a large down line under his belt paying him enough to live a comfortable life.

The sun rose one morning as usual and he went to his planned neighborhoods selling his magazines subscriptions as usual. He had no idea that by the time sun set that evening, his life would take a nose dive and would never been the same again. Pain, agony, humiliation and death were about to hit.

Gamma happened to be a victim of circumstance, something that might sound a little bit decorated to be real. But this is the truth that hurts to the bone. He happened to be in a crime scene where rape and child molestation had occurred and police were on the hunt for the man who had allegedly abused 13-years old over and over again for many days. The 13 years old had given information that it is a young white young man who always carried a briefcase and sometimes wore a hoodie.

The abused had been put in fear by the rapist that she was afraid to tell it to her parents on fear the rapist would kill her. This had made the rapist plans go successfully without being noticed. The dark day for Gamma started as a bright day, making several subscriptions at the beginning of the day. When Gamma approached the residence of the 13 years old, although he had never been in that neighborhood, the 13-year old confirmed to police, who’re hiding in the house that he was the one. Gamma approached the door as usual but to the girl, “He is coming again”.

Gamma got himself arrested faster than he took his next breadth and the young troubled teen maintained that he was the one responsible for serial rapes. He only happened to be a victim of circumstances, carrying a briefcase as described, young white man and happened to be there around the same time the girl had described to police and her parents.

Investigations take time as due process of law. Thousands if not millions are in jails and prisons today for crimes they never committed. Being in jail or prison for child abuse by itself is virtually a death sentence. If you do not have an idea what I am talking about, watch the Shaw shank redemption.

Gamma was taken in jail despite his desperate effort to deny and explain his situation. A warm delicious dinner was baking for hungry prisoners… and this dinner was Gamma. He stayed in jail for 9 months before he was acquainted of any wrongdoing but the damage had occurred from his first night in prison. I cannot remember whether he spent the 9 months in jail or prison but it didn’t matter for what happened to him.

Get yourself a warm drink, unhook the phone cable and turn off the TV as you read what happened to Gamma

According to sources like Shaw shank redemption, a young white man is like a hot cake in jail, so hot that prisoners fight over them as they are booked in. Jails have gangs with leaders and members of these gangs are very royal to each other. They fight everyday for their survival against other gang members.

The first night, Gamma was beaten, choked helplessly and rapped by gang of over 20 men over and over again in turns. It is saddening how this could happen without anyone intervening. This was only one night out of many nights that went on the same way without any help. I’ve heard that prison guards watch such incidences on camera monitors like movies eating “popcorns”.

Gamma lived the life in hell and rapes only intensified as other smaller gangs started doing the same. Gamma was made to be reporting secretly to one gang leader every day for unconditional “sex”. He had to keep his appointments because failure to do this would cause the whole gang to go hunting for him and of course, rape him in turns. He was better of reporting to one than to have many taking turns on him. You read it right… he had to take himself daily secretly and offer himself for sex to another man.

His depression was severe; he tried to commit suicide but had no means to execute it. Death seemed as the only way out of this situation. One day he got a piece of broken glass and thought he could use it harm his attackers. Being an average young man, he had no strength to fight with big hardcore jail gangs with built bodies and advanced fighting skills. Despite knowing this, Gamma was determined to hurt his attackers even if it meant how small or minor.

But how many and how deep could a piece of glass hurt enough to stop the rape?

Gamma knew too well that trying to fight could only make it worse for him. He feared being killed every minute of the way. He decided to put these broken pieces of glass… guess where… in his rectum so as those raping him could get cut and maybe stop raping him. The plan was a total failure and a disaster as it only caused more painful wounds in his already torn rectum. But this did not make the rapes to stop at all, only that this time, they were more painful and bloody.

Diseases like hepatitis, HIV and other infections followed. Gamma had to get part of his colon taken out surgically due to lower bowel necrosis. By the time he was acquainted, Gamma could no longer walk on his two feet and relied on a wheelchair. It was after this surgery when Gamma was admitted in the ward I worked back then.

The word depression could only be an understatement. Tears on his face ran down like a stream as he got used to living with a colostomy. He talked about it to anyone who could listen with bitterness and resentment against the law enforcement officials. Who wouldn’t?

Every time the sun went down, Gamma got into a sundowners’ syndrome, something normally seen in senile Alzheimer’s disease sufferers. Sundowners’ sufferers become confused in the evenings and can sometimes look intoxicated and delirious. Heavy dose anti-depression drugs had not showed any glamour of hope in controlling Gamma’s depressions.

I have no idea where or what happened to Gamma after his discharge to a nursing home at age 27. If he s still living, may God bless his heart. I wish I had better words to tell you more about Gamma’s story but I feel like these are the best words I could get to express this deep burning pain I feel everyday for Gamma.

I would suggest you watch Shaw shank redemption. I must warn you I advance that it is a long movie and could be disturbing although graphic details about what was happening to Gamma are not shown in the movie.

I hope you feel different about what you knew about prisons today. Send this story to your friends but do not copy or republish it.