Thursday, November 20, 2008

Inmate gets $300,000 for lost genitals

A man who said a bad diagnosis caused him to lose his penis and a testicle to flesh-eating bacteria while in prison has won a $300,000 settlement from Washington state.

Charlie Manning, 61, who now lives in a motor home near Lake Cushman on the Olympic Peninsula, said he expects to net about $115,000 this week after paying lawyer costs and other bills. "It's been a nightmare. I figured I should settle for what I could get because I just want it behind me," Manning said. "It's unreal. It's like something from Mars."

Manning was sent to the Stafford Creek Correctional Center, six miles southwest of Aberdeen, in 2004 after being sentenced to a year and a month for threatening a neighbour and stealing the man's pistol during a drunken argument in Mason County. He record included at least two drunken-driving convictions and a third felony.

After he developed an infected hemorrhoid and his symptoms worsened, including a fever, swollen genitals, bleeding from the rectum and a rash on his torso, prison medical staff diagnosed him as having an allergic reaction to cold medicine.

By the time a doctor at Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen found Manning had necrotizing fasciitis, or flesh-eating bacteria, and he was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, the bacteria had spread to his pelvic area.

Surgeons had to remove several pounds of flesh, including his penis and a testicle, to save his life, DeLue said. A replacement penis was made with skin from Manning's thigh.

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