Marques Davis was in the infirmary at Hutchinson Correctional Facility on Dec. 27, 2016, back with the same symptoms hed been complaining of for months, including numbness and weakness in his legs.
But on that day there was something new.
It feels like something is eating my brain, Davis told Corizon Health employees who staff the prison infirmary.
According to a lawsuit filed in federal court Monday, something was infecting his brain: a fungus that slowly killed the 27-year-old over the next four months, as he pleaded for help while his vision blurred, his speech slurred and he became so disoriented that he drank his own urine.
Corizon was the nations largest for-profit provider of prison health care as of last year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is suing the state of Alabama over Corizons practices there. It handled about 15 percent of the U.S. inmate population at 534 correctional facilities in 27 states, including Kansas and Missouri.
Corizon was sued for malpractice 660 times in a five-year period, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
A CT scan at the hospital revealed dramatic swelling of the brain sufficient to force the upper part of the brain down into the lower part of the brain.
The next day Davis was declared brain-dead and taken off life support. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be advanced granulomatous meningoencephalitis, a form of meningitis that Dempsey said was caused by the Candida Albicans fungus.
According to a 2010 article in the International Journal of Surgery, that type of infection is rare in people with no underlying medical condition, but is more prevalent in places with unsanitary conditions and in people who have had a long course of antibiotics. Its difficult to diagnose but it usually responds well to intravenous treatment with an anti-fungal called Amphotericin B.
The lawsuit alleges that Corizon staff reported multiple times that they thought he was faking illness. The Kansas Department of Corrections website lists more than 40 disciplinary infractions for Davis while he was in prison, most of them before he got sick.
An infirmary report from the week before Davis death faults him for refusing food and failing to get out of bed to use the toilet. Instead, he urinated in his water pitcher, which he then drank out of time and again.
