UAMS Professor Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D., with the help of more than 80 of his colleagues, supervisee residents, and students, falsely imprisoned and battered Sean Lynn for two weeks.

Sean did not give consent for treatment. He begged to be released from the Arkansas State teaching hospital. He made escape attempts each time the drugs forced into him, including fentanyl, benzos, Haldol, and Precedex, wore off.

Doctor Damalcheruvu, nor any other UAMS staff, petitioned a court for authority to treat Sean without consent. Nor was Sean’s next of kin, this writer, appointed as a surrogate decision-maker for the two weeks of unlawful confinement.

The gang at UAMS, each contributing and complicit, bound Sean’s hands and feet to the hospital bed railings. His genitals were exposed with no medical purpose. He was forced to defecate in a bedpan. Urinary catheters were inserted three times, though Sean purposefully pulled them out all three times.

During escape attempts, UAMS staff members disrupted the chain of tiny bones in Sean’s left ear. Sean left UAMS with hospital-acquired permanent deafness in his left ear.

The UAMS Gang threw off Sean’s electrolytes by starving, dehydrating, and medicating him. Sean left UAMS Medical Center with a hospital-acquired condition called hyponatremia, a low sodium level. Hyponatremia can cause death or lesser symptoms such as confusion.

After releasing Sean against the medical advice of Dr. Damalcheruvu and the unanimous UAMS opinion, the University of Arkansas billed Sean what it called a discounted rate: $46,000+. If Sean had stayed at UAMS until they killed him, the state would have taken all his assets.

UAMS refused to compensate Sean, pay for services to help him adjust to his hospital-acquired disabilities, or apologize. Sean asked for a settlement conference with ADA accommodations, and the risk manager for Dr. Damalcheruvu and the other doctors’ insurer wrote that the doctors would only participate in settlement discussions if Sean came alone.

Sean and I filed a lawsuit, pro se, concerning the two-week-long occurrence. Judge Cara Connors was assigned as the judge.

At first, I was hopeful. Judge Connors advertises that she is a champion of Blacks and the poor.

Judge Connors couldn’t possibly be happy about the fatal shooting of Tyrone Washington by a UAMS police officer after Mr. Washington was turned away from receiving mental health treatment. Apparently, Mr. Washington did not own six houses, like Sean. Payment for his treatment would be limited.

There are differences between Tyrone Washington and Sean Lynn. The former was Black. Sean is white. Mr. Washington had few assets. Sean had bought six small houses that should have been bulldozed and refurbished them with his own hands. Mr. Washington was shot in the UAMS parking lot after being turned away for treatment. He was alone. Sean’s then-girlfriend found him about 14 hours after UAMS imprisoned him, and I immediately joined Sean when his now-ex-girlfriend notified me. (She ended their 11-year cohabitation exactly one year after he was released from UAMS. She never vowed “for better or worse, in sickness and in health.”)

Judge Connors had the opportunity to tell UAMS it is required to afford non-consenting patients due process before confining them and violating their bodily autonomy. Instead, Judge Conners, and the Arkansas State Claims Commissioners before her, have forgiven the medical defendants’ procedural shenanigans and put up roadblocks to Sean’s pursuit of justice.

[To Be Continued.]