While Daniel Provencio lies in a brain-dead coma in a
Bakersfield hospital with a prison guard by his side, his family
may soon face the choice of discontinuing life support or taking on
hospital bills they cannot afford to pay.
Two and a half weeks after the incident in which the son of a
UCLA employee was shot by a prison guard with a foam pellet, his
family is trying to get him transferred from Mercy Hospital in
Bakersfield to the UCLA Medical Center in order to be closer to
home.
Having already served seven months of a one-year prison term for
parole violation, Provencio was shot in the head at Wasco State
Prison by a guard during an altercation Jan. 16. Three days later,
the 28-year-old father of one was declared brain dead.
Since then, his family has been in contact with UCLA, but the
prospects for the transfer are not clear.
“We don’t know if they will accept him or
not,” said Johnny Gallegos, Provencio’s father and an
employee with the UCLA maintenance department.
While declining to comment on the specific case of Provencio,
hospital officials said patient transfers of this sort are not
common.
“Normally, hospitals do not transfer patients unless the
host hospital is unable to care for the patient or another hospital
can offer an escalated level of care,” said Roxanne Moster, a
spokeswoman for the UCLA Medical Center.
Additionally, she said, the UCLA Medical Center is an acute care
hospital and would not normally accept patients who require
subacute care ““ a more specialized kind of care.
Provencio, who is still considered a prison inmate, is currently
in the intensive care unit of Mercy Hospital with a guard stationed
in his room. His family, who lives near the Los Angeles area, has
been driving several hours each way to visit him, and is allowed
only one hour of visitation time each day.
“I’ve been taking a lot of sick leave now,”
Gallegos said.
Due to his condition, Provencio is set to be released from
custody, his father said, potentially shifting the burden of the
hospital bill payment onto his family.
“The prison is paying for everything until he gets his
release,” Gallegos said. “Then we need to find a way
(to pay). We’re trying to apply for emergency
MediCal.”
Officials at Mercy Hospital declined to comment on
Provencio’s condition for privacy reasons, but his father
said the right side of his face was swollen and he looked
“terrible.”
“The doctors we spoke with, they don’t think
anything is going to change. They’ve never heard of anybody
regaining brain activity after being declared brain dead,”
Gallegos said.
“We’re trying to get more opinions,” he
continued. “We’re going to have to make a decision
about taking him off life support.”
The Jan. 16 incident started when two inmates began fighting,
said Lt. Brian Parriott, a spokesman for Wasco prison. A third
inmate tried to stop guards from breaking up the fight, he said,
but he would not say what role Provencio played in the
altercation.
“If an individual were to be involved in an altercation
with another individual, you want to use the lowest level of force
possible to stop the situation,” Parriott said.
Guards are not supposed to shoot at the head or neck of an
inmate unless someone is in “imminent danger of dying or
involved in an escape attempt,” Parriott said. In this case,
a foam pellet, considered nonlethal force, was intended to be shot
at an inmate’s extremities, he said.
An internal investigation is being conducted to determine
exactly what happened and why Provencio was shot in the head.
Gallegos said he has spoken with a lawyer, but has not decided
what, if any, future action he might take.
With reports from Harold Lee, Bruin staff.