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: Injustice in Seattle

Adding Insult To Injury

By David Packman

As some of you might remember, back in February of this year I broke down and finally went to a doctor after the problems I had ever since I was badly beaten and then denied medical care in November of 2006 just wouldn?t go away and was really affecting my work. As a result I was referred to specialists and they diagnosed me as having a Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The problem was that I work as a contract employee, so I don?t get medical coverage from work. I really didn?t want to go but my wife persisted in making me go get looked at? and of course this resulted in my trying to find ?self-pay? medical coverage before I could get seen.

Well, I did that, but it appears as though the plan I got didn?t cover what I was going in so I was stuck with over $3,000 in medical bills while I?ve still been struggling to make payments on the nearly $10,000 in bills I was stuck with from that disaster.

I tried to work out a way to make payments, but talks of that seem to have dropped through the cracks and the next thing I knew I was sent to collections. For the last few months now I?ve had this debt collections agency, Merchants Credit, calling me three times or so a day and threatening to call my employers and freeze my bank account. It?s frustrating and frightening because if they did either of those things my family would end up without an apartment to live in and me without a job. They have me scared to the point that I refuse to answer my phone anymore.

It?s been tough since all this happened to me, my hours at work were reduced so much that I had to get a second job and even then my income never got back to what it was before that incident. Making matters more complicated is that my wife can?t work because of her own chronic medical condition, so my income supports my whole family? if I lose my income we?re all done for.

Doubly frustrating was that I wanted to pay and was working towards doing so but they just passed me off to these people who refuse to take payments. I just don?t get why they would rather threaten me and punish me for this and not get anything rather than just accept payments and get the money they?re demanding.

Some lawyers I talked to recommended trying to get assistance through the Washington State Office of Crime Victims Advocacy but since the police never considered the beating I suffered a crime that ended up being a dead end.

This whole thing is just so damn frustrating, that my family and I are still suffering from what happened two years ago, something that I didn?t do wrong, is just insane. I just feel like my back is up against the wall and I?m still being punished for what I thought was nothing more than doing what was right. I'm about to be financially ruined and left homeless just for trying to stop a fight, it really seems like the world is trying to tell me that I should have minded my own business and let that guy I saved get stabbed to death.

I just wish I knew when all this punishment I never deserved was going to end.

Full post as published by Injustice in Seattle on November 25, 2008 (boomark / email).