Monty Ramey was released from the Broome County Correctional Facility on Tuesday, May 26. He is one of the 320 people who contracted salmonella last week while incarcerated and he still does not feel well.
“[I’ve got] really bad stomach pains, diarrhea, faint headaches,” he said this Wednesday during a press conference in an attorney’s office.
Binghamton attorney Ronald R. Benjamin has sent letters to Governor Kathy Hochul to ask her to remove Sheriff Fred Akshar from office. He is accusing Akshar of negligence and malfeasance related to the salmonella outbreak in the jail.
Ramey says he was only given Tylenol a few times and Pepto Bismol. When he was released on Tuesday he says he did not get any medical follow up instructions.
The sheriff said last week that they quickly shut down the kitchen when people started getting sick. He said the entire facility was cleaned and sanitized and food is being prepared off site then brought to the jail to be served to the incarcerated population.
Ramey said inmates no longer trust that the food is safe to eat.
“It looked like the exact same food that we were being served weeks before that,” he said.
Five people—formerly incarcerated people and family members of some currently incarcerated people—came together to speak at the Wednesday press conference.
Richard Ward was in the jail until this Monday. He said he and others started using their commissary accounts to get packaged foods.
“I bought my Tylenol and I bought ramen noodles so I was drinking chicken broth,” he said.
Ward said others are only eating junk food items from vending machines rather than eating the food provided by the jail. He, too, said he is still feeling the effects of salmonella poisoning.
Everyone at the press conference said they are concerned about retaliation but felt it was important to speak up because people in the jail are still sick and need help.
At a press conference last Friday held by the sheriff, the county medical director, Dr. Lazarus Gehring said the outbreak could end up being one of the largest in New York State history. Gehring said the largest reported salmonella infection to date was in a downstate hospital in 1987. Four hundred and four people were infected and nine died.
No one in the Broome County jail has died.
