June 27, 2012

Post-gastric-bypass surgery, prisoner needed much more time to eat and now he's suing for $80 million.

At Rikers Island, they only give you 4 minutes to eat, but in his condition, Michael Isola needed to chew and swallow slowly. Speed-eating led to vomiting and — he says — the separation of his stomach from his intestine. And extreme weight loss.

16 comments:

edutcher said...

Well, he wanted to lose weight, didn't he?

Wince said...

From the pictures: chicks dig fatties.

BarrySanders20 said...

It is ridiculous if they really only gave him 4 minutes to eat. The band around his stomach prevents him from eating quickly, so it's a medical condition that they should be able to easily accomodate.

That said, this hardly rises to the level of deliberate indifference of harm, unless they knew of the allegaed injury and continued to force him to scarf his food in 4 minutes.

So former fatso loses weight and also loses his case.

Shanna said...

Why do they only give him 4 minutes to eat? Aren't they in prison? It seems they would have plenty of time.

edutcher said...

Don't you know the riot always starts in the mess hall?

Remember that old Alka Seltzer commercial with George Raft?

KCFleming said...

A jailbird with brittle diabetes once bitched to me about how bad his diabetes treatment was in the hoosgow.

Bit my tongue, but thought that was an excellent reason for him to have avoided embezzling millions.

Prison. Needles. Self-directed care. Frequent testing. Close monitoring.
The first obviates the others.

Anonymous said...

I sure hope he didn't get that surgery while he was an inmate.

FleetUSA said...

@AllieOop. That was my thought too.

Plus 4 minutes seems poor. Try 10.

Scott M said...

Plus 4 minutes seems poor. Try 10.

Bah! In basic training, 4 minutes for chow would be heaven. (insert pithy comparison of basic to prison here)

The Drill SGT said...

Scott M said...
Plus 4 minutes seems poor. Try 10.

Bah! In basic training, 4 minutes for chow would be heaven.


Yeah, there was rwo basic rules applied to Basic Trainees when it came to the Mess Hall (I mean Dinging Facility :)

1. No talking (talking slows things down)
2. Take anything you want, but eat everything you take.

Sometimes that rule would be brought home by forcing the trainees with food on their plates as they left to stand and eat the food without utensils.

as for time limits. It depended on what the next activity was on the schedule. there weren't discrete seatings. However, we did line them up by Platoons. The best platoon that week went first. The last [place platoon (or the one that had screwed up that day) last. Time and choices for them were constrained. It paid to be best. Classic reward punishment theory :)

Mary Beth said...

The article says he had the surgery in 2008 and was arrested in 2010 and wasn't jailed until 2011, when he tested positive for the drugs. He had already lost 300 pounds by that time.

The weirdest thing, to me, in the article was that it said that milk and Kool-Aid were offered with all of the prison meals. It's like they're talking about the lunch menu for daycare.

Unknown said...

The military isn't jail.

There are so many things wrong with the justice system that a whole 'nother blog wouldn't cover it.

I hope he gets his millions if only to focus more attention on the cost of the insane system we pay for.

Scott M said...

The military isn't jail.

Not at all. Hence, "pithy".

d-day said...

If the allegations are true, that's awful and someone should pay--but those pictures don't prove anything.

The story states that he had major open abdominal surgery on the digestive tract, followed by an infection. That will drop massive amounts of weight while confined to a hospital bed and getting nutrition through a tube. Can't be helped.

Notice how there are no pictures of immediately before imprisonment and immediately after. I would die of shock if he were anywhere near that emaciated on the actual day of prison discharge.

Journalists love when trial lawyers feed them stories like this--both are biased toward the sensational. Doesn't mean they're right.

Methadras said...

The money headline: Ex-Rikers Island inmate suing the city for $80M, saying meals at jail cafeteria nearly killed him.

Prison food. It'll get ya every time.

Unknown said...

Hope that this problem will be solved. Gastric Bypass Surgery is developed to help you lose weight, it does not affect your mind.