#350 - SARC

This is a sad post.  It was sad when I first witnessed it, and  I will truly say that it still haunts me whenever I think about it.  It is not really about one person, but about a group of people.  When I was a PT student, I spent some time working under a therapist in the Lafayette area who serviced a facility called SARC.  It is similar to our TARC where individuals with physical and mental handicaps attend day programs to give their caregivers relief and to provide the services these individuals need.  That is where the similarities with our local program end.  Let me tell you why.

Years ago (like 40-50 years ago) there were not a lot of resources for parents of handicapped children.  If they had a child that they could not take care of, their choices were limited.  From the way the story was told to me however, there was a home somewhere near the LA border, but in Texas, that would take care of these types of children.  It was an institution, but the thought was that it was run more like a home.  It was private pay, and it was staffed by nurses and attendants who cared for these handicapped individuals.  It was clean, it was aesthetically pleasing, and it was in a beautiful location with lots of yard and places to sit and enjoy the view.  So, a lot of parents, who were faced with no other good options, paid this facility to keep their handicapped children.  The parents would visit on weekend and designated visitor days, but the rest of the time, the staff took care of all of the needs of the residents.

I'm not sure how it all went down, but eventually one of the parents started to get a little suspicious about the care that was being given.  Long story short...an investigation was done and it was found that the residents (handicapped children) were being locked in cages and kept in the dark at all times except the visiting hours/days.  They were being fed minimally and they had little to no human contact or interaction from the staff.  Basically, it was like a prison for humans who needed care so much more than the rest of us.

Anyway,  back to the time I was in school...  There were about ten (now) adults who had spent a lot of time (I think 4-5 years) in said facility.  They had suffered the abuse and neglect of the (now jailed) administrators, but they had survived...with lots of residual problems in addition to the ones they went in with.

Like the man who would not stand up.  His knees were rubbed raw from crawling on the ground everywhere he went.  At the time I saw him, he was looking at having to have an amputation because of the infection that was in one knee from the constant crawling/friction/wounds.  He would work with us to try to stand and he actually could stand up and take a few steps.  The problem was that the first five years of his life, he was locked in a cage where he could not stand up and because of his limited mental capacity, he did not realize that he was supposed to walk.

Or the man who kept his fingers  in the shape of an "O."  This prevented him from eating or writing or dressing himself.  We were working with him to stretch his hands and use them functionally.   We were making braces to try to keep his hands in the correct position.  The problem was that for the first 5 years of his life, he spent all of his days running his hands up and down the bars of his cell, which was supposed to be his safe home.  His hands become molded or stuck in this position.

And lastly, the boy who carried a spoon around and banged on all things metal, and the man who was not blind, but would not open his eyes.  In the medical world I will explain it as creation of their own sensory input.  Because for the first five years of his life no one was talking to him (no auditory input), he experienced no different smells, he was in the dark (no visual input), and he had no toys or thing to touch (no tactile input), he created his own by banging his spoon on the bars of the cell.  The other man, having lived the first five years of his life in the dark, could not tolerate any light at all so he just refused to open his eyes.

To say the least...horrifying for me as a nineteen year old sheltered PT student.  Horrifying still today as a mother, and a compassionate caregiver to the handicapped.  My thoughts and prayers still go out to these men who suffered so needlessly.  My thoughts and prayers still go out to their parents, who thought that they were doing the right thing for their children.  My thoughts and prayers also go out to all the children and adults, all over the world, who still today suffer from needless abuse and neglect.