Lisa Scruggs figures she’s been to each drug home in Oklahoma Metropolis. She was used to discovering her son in determined form. However on a 100-degree July day in 2020, when Josh referred to as from a rehab facility in Lawton telling her he had been kicked out, she knew this rescue mission was totally different.
Josh McWhorter, 26, had been addicted to heroin for seven years, almost costing him his freedom and his life. Weeks earlier, Josh had been caught pawning a stolen guitar to fund his addiction. When he appeared in court docket excessive on heroin, a decide in Oklahoma Metropolis granted him one last likelihood to get help. In lieu of jail time, he was required to attend 45-days of treatment, which landed him at Roadback, a state-funded substance abuse treatment center.
“He knew he was going to die if he didn’t go to Roadback. He didn’t need to die,” stated Robin Bruno, Josh’s public defender.
However simply 10 days into his keep, Josh examined optimistic for COVID-19. Oklahoma was solely months into the pandemic. Greater than 19,000 Oklahomans had been contaminated and 416 had died from the virus. Josh referred to as his mother in a panic.
“They’re telling me I’ve to depart the constructing,” Josh stated.
Lisa hopped in her 2012 Honda CX and drove two hours to Lawton, making an attempt to work out a plan in her head. On the telephone, Roadback staff advised her Josh was now her duty. She may return him to Roadback after testing adverse for COVID-19. Till then, she had to quarantine him and hold him sober — one thing she hadn’t been in a position to do for six years.
“I’m pondering, the state did all this, the court docket put him right here. So there has to be some backup,” Lisa stated.
In 2016, Oklahoma voters accepted two measures aimed at reducing the nation’s second highest incarceration charge by shortening sentences for nonviolent, low-level offenders and rising entry to treatment programs that provide an various to jail. In Josh’s case, Oklahoma County District Court docket Choose Lisa Hammond noticed an alternative.
Hammond contacted a neighborhood nonprofit and requested them to discover a residential treatment facility with room for Josh. Employees at The Schooling and Employment Ministry (TEEM), an Oklahoma Metropolis-based nonprofit that assists with case management, housing, transportation, treatment and jobs, picked Josh up from jail and delivered him to Roadback.
However when Josh contracted COVID-19, neither the court docket, the nonprofit nor the treatment facility supplied to help. As soon as once more, his survival was left up to his mom.
Lisa arrived in Lawton to discover Josh crumpled on the curb exterior Roadback’s administration constructing. He had a 102-degree fever and it confirmed: he was shaking, his pale pores and skin was brilliant crimson, burnt from sitting in the July solar. His tan denims and teal V-neck have been drenched in sweat. He had no telephone, no pockets. He was laying on the asphalt, resting his head on two black suitcases he introduced from jail.
Earlier than Lisa may get out of the automotive, Josh stated, “I did good mother, I didn’t do something silly this time.”
She began to hug him, however stopped herself. Was it secure to contact him, or even be shut?
Simply weeks earlier than, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt had celebrated the reopening of department shops and gyms, unmasked. Hundreds of guests from throughout the nation flocked to Tulsa for Donald Trump’s first marketing campaign rally for the reason that begin of the pandemic. In the meantime, nursing houses and prisons have been on lockdown because the virus unfold.
The Oklahoma Division of Psychological Health and Substance Abuse Providers supplied COVID-19 pointers in the shape of steadily requested questions on its web site to centers like Roadback, that are licensed by the department and receive state funding. Facilities have been anticipated to stay open and proceed serving purchasers, in accordance to the web site.
There was no route on how usually residents like Josh needs to be examined for COVID-19 or what to do when somebody checks optimistic.
Lisa’s husband is asthmatic and immunocompromised, so she couldn’t convey him house. All of Josh’s buddies struggled with addiction, in order that wasn’t an possibility. Her thoughts was racing.
“I’m similar to, the place am I supposed to go, what am I supposed to do?”
Lisa had Josh when she was 23 and determined to increase him and his older brother Nathan in Edmond as a single mother. The boys’ father was addicted to methamphetamines and Lisa couldn’t belief him to be across the youngsters. Lisa and Josh have been extraordinarily shut. “He advised me every thing,” she stated.
In excessive school, Josh turned a devoted wrestler, profitable regional competitions and medals that when adorned the partitions of his childhood bed room. He was so devoted to studying jujitsu he paid the tutoring by cleansing the mats at the dojo.
Lisa Scruggs’ house is crammed with pictures and memorabilia of her son Josh McWhorter. A spare bed room in her house, the place McWhorter as soon as overdosed and was discovered unconscious on the ground, now homes reminders of him like his jujitsu shorts and a glass picture of him and his mother. A China cupboard incorporates a poem he wrote when he was 7, titled “Who am I?” “I’m Josh and cool, who desires good issues, who desires to be good.” (Whitney Bryen/Oklahoma Watch)
Josh averted drugs till he was about 20, when a breakup despatched him spiraling. He was in a string of automotive accidents, having run-ins with the legislation. What began as smoking marijuana rapidly was smoking pain drugs and injecting heroin.
A few years later, Josh was caught utilizing a stolen bank card and was incarcerated for almost 11 months. After he was launched, Lisa says he started instantly utilizing once more.
She barely slept, at all times on alert, prepared to choose Josh up and save him from bother. She took him on drug runs, ready in the parking zone afraid it may be the final time she’d see her son alive.
“You get so caught up in the center of it that you simply don’t even notice how far you’ve let issues go,” Lisa stated.
She felt betrayed. Josh used to shield her. “Now he simply led me into the pit.”
One day, Lisa purchased him a go well with to make some extent. “I advised him that it had to keep at house as a result of I wanted it for after I was going to have to bury him.”
On July 2, 2020, a program director at TEEM named Francie Ekwerekwu transported Josh to Roadback from Oklahoma Metropolis County jail. Ekwerekwu recollects how through the drive Josh saved repeating “how a lot he was prepared for change and, hopefully, a brand new life.”
Roadback is one of 28 Oklahoma residential mental health and addiction treatment centers that receive state funding. These services are overseen by the mental health department, which performs on-site evaluations each one to three years, relying on the facility’s most up-to-date report. Critiques have been paused through the pandemic.
From July 2020, the month Josh entered and was evicted from treatment, via June 2021, state and federal companies despatched $31.4 million in public cash to these centers.
Throughout that span, Roadback was eligible to earn up to $560,934.76 in state funds from the department of mental health, in accordance to Roadback’s contract. Funds are calculated based mostly on providers supplied to purchasers like Josh. The state company didn’t understand how a lot Roadback acquired throughout these 12 months.
The Lawton-based center has been working since 1951. It opened as one of Oklahoma’s first midway homes and subsequently began a sister program, Helen Vacation, for ladies. At present it has sober living residences, and inpatient and outpatient treatment.
The facility attracts purchasers from throughout the state, many straight from county jails which in the summer season of 2020 have been hotspots of an infection. In accordance to former staff members, primary security protocols, resembling masking and social distancing, weren’t put into place.
Employees members at the very best danger, resident advisors who have been accountable for monitoring and interacting with purchasers face-to-face, weren’t supplied with enough private protecting gear. Bea Gutzwiller, a former residential aide, stated in the event that they needed protecting gear, that they had to use their very own $8-an-hour wage to purchase it.
Josh’s days at Roadback adopted a routine, beginning round 7 a.m. He attended almost 5 hours of group therapy periods on subjects starting from anger management to coping with anxiety and depression. Within the afternoon, Josh attended Narcotics Nameless conferences. He floated across the common areas the remaining of the day, smoking in the yard or in his room.
Josh seen the shortage of COVID precautions at Roadback instantly. The staff wasn’t wiping down telephones between calls or different surfaces. They weren’t carrying masks.
Inside his first days, a staff member requested him the place the bug spray was. “You’ll be able to’t ask an addict the place the bug spray is,” Josh advised his mom on one of his first calls house. “Some of us will drink and smoke that stuff.”
But, Lisa stated her son remained dedicated.
“He stated, ‘Mother, although this place is a shithole, I’m going to work for 45 days, so you’ll be able to have a break from all of my drama. I would like you to have the opportunity to have life.”
In his week one progress notes, his counselor wrote: “Josh is predetermined to make this program work. He at all times has a optimistic angle. He spreads knowledge and hope to everybody.”
However three days into his keep, Josh began creating a sore throat and fever. It took Roadback six days to take him to the Comanche County Health Division to be examined.
Josh was the second of at least 4 COVID-19 circumstances Gutzwieler noticed. The quarantine plan Roadback established after Josh’s eviction concerned reworking a windowless storage closet the place purchasers can be required to keep for two weeks.
“It was scary,” stated Avery Beaty, one other former resident advisor. “I do bear in mind at that point any individual had prompt possibly it’d be a good suggestion to shut it down till they acquired a deal with on what was going on. They determined not to do this.”
It was Beaty who discovered from the county that Josh was optimistic. His Roadback superiors advised him he wanted to discharge Josh. Beaty, a soft-spoken man, remembers getting a “sick feeling” delivering the information.
“It tore me up after I noticed him depart as a result of right here’s a man making an attempt to do the correct factor and he’s acquired to depart as a result of he’s sick,” stated Beaty, who struggled with his personal addiction.
Josh’s records point out he was “medically” discharged. In accordance to Roadback’s handbook, a discharged consumer “shall have plans for outpatient treatment, enough medication, and a housing referral.”
In Josh’s case, he acquired none.
On his discharge paperwork, one part asks for the identify, tackle, telephone quantity and contact individual for assist teams in Josh’s community. As an alternative, a handwritten observe states “Client was discharged earlier than the plan may very well be developed.”
A comparable response was written in a piece reserved for community assets to help with Josh’s wants.
When requested about these procedures, Roadback’s Executive Director Don McGhee stated it varies on a “case by case foundation.”
Roadback would seek suggestions from exterior medical personnel in most cases because it doesn’t have a health care provider on web site, McGhee stated. It’s unclear what entry purchasers get to help from exterior medical professionals.
Jeff Dismukes, a spokesman for the state department of mental health, stated the company was unaware of Josh’s eviction from Roadback. The company shouldn’t be notified of each discharge from licensed services, he stated.
In accordance to Roadback’s state contract, the department can terminate the settlement if it determines that “the health or security of the individuals served is in imminent jeopardy due to the actions or inactions of Contractor or these below Contractor’s management.”
The department’s governing board renewed Roadback’s certification, and its capability to receive public cash, for two extra years at a gathering on Might 27.
When Lisa picked up Josh, there have been nonetheless many unknowns about how the virus unfold. Within the automotive, she and Josh wore masks, gloves, and wrapped bathtub towels round their heads. With none steering, she determined to convey him to quarantine at the Surestay Inn, which has since been rebranded because the Hemp Resort with a marijuana leaf on the sign, near the Interstate 235 and I-44 intersection in Oklahoma Metropolis. “I didn’t know what else to do,” Lisa stated.
When Lisa checked him in, she made certain to depart him with solely $7 — sufficient for a snack from the merchandising machine, she thought, however not sufficient to rating.
(Left) In November 2017, Josh McWhorter, who struggled with addiction, was sober. (Proper) 5 months later, McWhorter had began utilizing drugs once more. He’s pictured at a competition on his mom’s birthday in April 2018. His mother, Lisa Scruggs, stated she may at all times inform when her son was utilizing drugs as a result of he seemed malnourished, had open wounds on his face and luggage below his eyes. (Pictures supplied)
The subsequent day was Josh’s twenty seventh birthday. As requested, Lisa introduced him a cheese pizza from Domino’s. When she arrived, Josh didn’t come to the resort door. She referred to as the police, who pounded on the door and referred to as for Josh to reply. He finally opened the door and stated he was drowsy from COVID and hadn’t heard her knocking.
Lisa and the police searched for signs of drug use and discovered none. The room was organized, toiletries lined up neatly alongside the lavatory sink. When Lisa left, she remembers Josh standing in the doorway, crossing his arms and blowing her a kiss, like he at all times did.
After that, Josh stopped answering her textual content messages. She returned six days later to discover his resort room ransacked with garments she’d by no means seen and powdery substances mendacity round.
Lisa drove frantically across the metropolis wanting for her son. That evening, she began receiving a string of incoherent messages from Josh. First, unhappy face emojis, then two hours later, a textual content saying, “What’s up mother?” However she couldn’t monitor him down.
A few days later, she acquired the final textual content message she’d ever get from Josh: “It doesn’t matter what occurs, I really like you, and I’m so grateful for all the issues you could have completed for me and nonetheless do.”
The subsequent day, July 20, she acquired a call from St. Anthony Hospital telling her Josh was in the emergency room. After ready for hours alone, she may inform by the look on the physician’s face that Josh was lifeless.
“I couldn’t breathe,” she stated. “ It simply appears like any individual ripped your coronary heart out.”
After Josh’s passing, Lisa started a steadfast search for solutions. Lisa was satisfied that if she may receive Josh’s records from Roadback, she may present their actions had been unlawful, or at least unethical, and cost her son his life.
“Roadback was the place that kicked him out. In order that’s the place to begin,” she stated.
Lisa obtained audio from a resort employee’s 911 call after discovering Josh unresponsive in a rest room, ambulance records and copies of Josh’s court docket case. She started piecing collectively a timeline, from Josh’s first court docket look to his last days. Roadback refused to give her Josh’s file till she underwent a three-month process to receive a next-of-kin affidavit, which to her, felt extreme. She began calling native attorneys, however the ones she spoke to didn’t appear to assume she had a case.
“No one desires to arise for an addict. I feel Josh deserves to be stood up for,” she stated. “I had to discover out what occurred and why. The system failed him so many occasions in the large image.”
She scheduled a court docket listening to to be appointed as Josh’s surviving consultant in order to get her arms on his paperwork.
As she awaited her listening to, Lisa saved calling Roadback to inform him of her intentions to safe Josh’s records. On one telephone call, the receptionist answered, “Is that this about the lifeless child once more?”
Undeterred, she acquired the required paperwork and drove to Roadback. This time, she was escorted off the premises and directed to call their legal professional, who indicated to Lisa he would cherrypick which records he launched to her. She requested him if that was authorized, to which he responded, “I feel so.”
Choose Hammond stated that when Josh was launched into TEEM’s custody, he was now not a ward of the state. Her solely possibility was to put Josh again into the County jail till he recovered, she stated, and that didn’t appear to be possibility.
“Would he have survived?” Hammond stated. “Who is aware of with all of the deaths from fentanyl in there, I simply don’t know. To me, the higher possibility was to hold TEEM monitoring him and get him help when he was medically cleared.”
In accordance to Jaime Patterson, Director of Diversion Providers at TEEM, when Josh was launched, the group wasn’t outfitted to monitor him. “Nobody was ready for that,” Patterson stated.
A spokesman for the mental health department stated they have been unaware of Josh’s eviction and his loss of life.
Nobody took duty for Josh, besides his mom.
“I don’t know if [the records] introduced me peace,” Lisa Scruggs stated. “It introduced some understanding. I assume. And possibly slightly bit of peace, however it actually simply fuels the fireplace to transfer ahead, to make them be accountable…You simply don’t need to see anyone else’s child undergo that.
“Some people want one thing to make them really feel like they’re nonetheless preventing for one thing. Even when it’s not your youngsters, it’s any individual else’s child.”
Kathryn Hurd is an investigative reporter and freelance author based mostly in San Francisco. She presently covers little one welfare at UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program. Her work has appeared in ProPublica, FRONTLINE, the San Francisco Examiner and KQED. Discover extra work at www.kathrynhurd.us.
Ellie Lightfoot is a baby welfare reporter with the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Grad Faculty of Journalism. They’re additionally a 2022 Nationwide Fellow with USC Annenberg’s Center for Health Journalism, and an unbiased audio and documentary producer, with bylines in ProPublica, FRONTLINE, VICE, and NPR. Discover extra work at www.ellielightfoot.com.
Whitney Bryen is an investigative reporter and visible storyteller at Oklahoma Watch with an emphasis on home violence, mental health and nursing houses. Contact her at (405) 201-6057 or wbryen@oklahomawatch.org. Comply with her on Twitter @SoonerReporter.
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