On this unit, they come and tell you that you are on the medical chain around 12 pm and give you the option of refusing. At 2:30 am they come and get you. Have to strip down to your boxers only. No shirt, pants, no socks. Just your shower shoes and make you walk down the hallway to a holding cell. Wait shivering from cold until around 5:30 am when the chain bus arrives. Then the guards make you strip completely naked, sit on a metal detector, and hand you some really dirty clothes. Then stand in line to be hand cuffed to another inmate, then marched outside and locked into a crowded bus. Then, if not too many stops at other units to pick up more inmates, three hours later we arrive at John Sealy Hospital.

We are marched into an area under the hospital itself and unhand cuffed and then wait in line to be searched again and finally told to get into an elevator. Then, taken to about the seventh floor and put into a really loud and crowded holding cell. Two long 2’x12′ inch benches down the middle of the room and 2’x12′ benches all the way around the walls. Still, you are lucky if you can find a place to sit, otherwise you can try to find a place to sit on the floor. Probably around 50 men in there and a TV turned up to full volume and many of the inmates are yelling at each other at once. Wonderful environment to socialize and relax. Then the guards come in and yell names for count. After a couple hours they pass out Turkey sandwiches to everyone. Then if you are lucky, they call out your name and take you to the floor your doctor’s appointment is on. Placed into another smaller holding cell and wait till you are called out.

When you are finished with your appointment the guard takes you back to the same crowded holding cell. After several more hours they pass out another Turkey sandwich. Milk and juice are always given with the sandwiches. Then, around 5 pm – 6 pm they start calling names to go downstairs to the chain bus. First, they strip you naked again, take all your clothes and given new fresh dirty clothes, marched back into the elevator, made to sit on the metal detector again, handcuffed and loaded into a waiting bus. If you are lucky the bus will have a working air-conditioning. Several hours later you arrive back on your unit, wore out, tired, it is between 10 pm and 12 pm.

So, that is about the best I can describe of the experience, which is really horrible in the heat of the summer.