Bradley Jones and mom, Michelle Cote, have filed suit against prison health care provider, WellPath LLC
(This article first appeared in the July print edition of the Hendersonian.)
Bradley Jones lay on the floor for eight hours waiting for medical help after having a stroke at the Little Sandy Correctional Complex in eastern Kentucky on April 13, 2023, says his mother, Michelle Cote.
Some of the adverse health effects that Jones is suffering through now during his rehabilitation could have been less extreme with effective health care that most stroke victims receive as soon as possible, Cote said.
The incident—and the health care he received in the prison leading up to it—is at the center of a lawsuit that Jones, a Henderson resident, has filed in U.S. District Court Eastern District of Kentucky against WellPath, LLC. That company is the health care provider for Kentucky’s prison system including for the Little Sandy Correctional Complex at the time of Jones’ stroke.
According to the complaint—filed exactly a year after Jones’ stroke on April 13, 2024—Jones is seeking restitution for negligence and indifference in the care he received leading up to his stroke.
Before the stroke occurred, Jones was taking an anticoagulant, the blood thinner Warfarin, to keep his blood between a certain thickness range so that it flows easily though a mechanical heart valve put in because of a naturally leaky valve.
According to Cote, Jones’ blood readings needed to be monitored closely and caretakers at Little Sandy, who are employed by WellPath, last checked his blood levels on March 15, 2023, nearly a month before Jones’ stroke. It was lower than the desired range then, Cote said. From then till the time of his stroke, caretakers administered his prescription to him sporadically, she contends.
After Jones was found, he was taken to the Morgan County ARH Hospital, and the next day, he was transferred to Hazard Hospital, Cote said. But just two days after his stroke, he was transferred again, this time to the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital because of brain swelling that required an emergency craniectomy.
He stayed at the UK hospital until May 17, when he was discharged and transferred to the Kentucky State Reformatory. This move was against Cote’s will. She said she pleaded with many officials to get her son to acute stroke care, but instead prison officials pulled him from the UK hospital and took him to the state reformatory.
She claims prison officials told the UK hospital that they had spoken to Cote and that she wanted her son to go to the state reformatory. Cote said knowing the needs of stroke victims and knowing her son wasn’t getting it made her sick. She said he received no physical therapy in his seven months at the state reformatory. That’s heartbreaking, she said, because the initial months after a stroke are often the most important in determining how much of a recovery can be made.
“It’s a panicked feeling knowing he’s losing ground,” she said.
In all that time, Cote said she was allowed to visit him just once because he was still under the prison visitation policy. Cote contends he was chained to his bed and again treated poorly, evidenced by mold in his feeding tube when she was finally able to get him out in late December.
That occurred Dec. 21, and according to Cote, only because the state reformatory had been served intent to litigate papers from Cote’s Philadelphia law firm, McEldrew Purtell.
From the LaGrange, Ky., facility, she drove her son back across the state and took him to Henderson Deaconess Hospital for six weeks. His next stop was River Haven Nursing and Rehabilitation in Paducah for two months, before Cote could get him into Henderson Nursing and Rehabilitation in the spring of 2024.
When he got to Henderson Nursing and Rehabilitation, he was immobile and mostly paralyzed on the right side of his body. Caregivers there had to hoist Jones in a hammock-like machine to move him around. For more than a year at the local facility, Jones worked hard to regain his ability to move and to speak.
In May, when the Hendersonian met with him and Cote at the Henderson Nursing and Rehabilitation, Jones couldn’t speak fluently or in long sentences but could understand all that was said and responded with short phrases, such as “Oh yeah!”
He struggled to get out of his wheelchair, especially on the right side of his body that had been paralyzed after the stroke. But he was determined and showed he could do it.
It was evident that Jones was working hard to rehabilitate and, from short interactions of caregivers poking their head into his room, that he was a crowd favorite at the facility.
That’s made clearer from a “Success Story: Bradley” brochure that Henderson Nursing and Rehabilitation created and that Cote sent to the Hendersonian.
It said in part:
“Bradley came to us after experiencing a hemorrhagic stroke and was unable to complete any mobility tasks. He required a mechanical lift for transfers, was unable to sit or stand, and had significant difficulty communicating.
“From the start, Bradley gave 110% in every therapy session, consistently pushing himself to improve. He even kept weights in his room to work on strength outside of rehab sessions. Thanks to his determination and the support of our therapy team, he made incredible progress. By the end of his stay, Bradley could complete all bed mobility, transfer with wheelchair setup, walk with minimal assistance, and communicate more effectively.
“…Bradley became a bright light in our community, and while we are sad to see him go, we’re honored to have been part of his journey.”
In early June, he left the rehabilitation facility and moved back to his mother’s home, before another move on June 23 to University of Kentucky Cardinal Hill Acute Stroke Recovery Hospital, where Cote said he’ll stay until July 11 for more rehabilitation.
The Hendersonian contacted WellPath for this article. Joanie Brady, the director of external communications and reputation management, wrote in an email that, “Unfortunately, we cannot comment on any pending or active litigation.”
Nationwide, WellPath is involved in hundreds of other lawsuits, according to national news outlets. WellPath, meanwhile, filed for bankruptcy in November, and the hundreds of lawsuits against the company, including those in Kentucky, were paused in March, according to a Lexington Herald-Leader article. So, right now, it’s up in the air if Jones will ever get any restitution.
Still, Cote contacted the Hendersonian because she believes there’s still much wrong with the state of Kentucky’s prison system.
“I feel like there’s been a lot of suppression,” she said.
Cote plans to file suit against the state prison system next.
One of her biggest complaints is that she didn’t learn of what had occurred to her son until five days after Jones’ stroke when a prison chaplain called her and asked if medical treatment were needed, would she give permission for them to do it. Until then, she didn’t know her son had had a stroke.
She asked the chaplain further questions, only to be told that he couldn’t say more and gave her a number to call, which she tried often but couldn’t get through. Nine days after her son’s stroke, prison officials finally contacted her, she said.
Jones, now 42, initially went to prison on drug charges. Cote said her son had a motorcycle wreck when he was 19 that nearly ripped his body in half. He’s battled drug abuse since, after getting hooked on painkillers after surgeries and recovery. He was sentenced to five years in Henderson County on drug charges, she said, and sent to Little Sandy.
Meanwhile, Kentucky is still contracted with WellPath to provide healthcare to the prison system, which Cote thinks is outrageous.
“I want to see the system stop hurting people,” Cote said. “Corrections need correcting.”
Now, Jones is at Cardinal Hill. He uses a hemi walker—a sort of one-handed walker—to move around, Cote said. He’s now using longer phrases and has more words in his vocabulary, she said, adding he’ll soon start a medication that can jump start his speech improvement.
He’ll also get a vagus nerve stimulator inserted in his chest, Cote said. It’s a mechanism that can send signals from his brain to the damaged arm, helping him to use it better.
“Now he’s getting the chance he should have had in ’23,” his mother said.
