http://www.lastrealindians.com/2012/04/25/lakota-man-accuses-hospital-of-healthcare-hate-crime/"Rapid City, South Dakota – A member and resident of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota came home from a 14-day stay in the hospital to find he had been horribly mutilated. Three Ks can be easily seen carved or burned into his abdomen in the shocking photograph taken the day after he came home.
Vernon Traversie, who is completely blind, said his nightmare began when he had a heart attack while at the Heart Doctors office in Rapid City last August. He said they immediately sent him a few blocks away to Rapid City Regional Hospital for emergency surgery.
Traversie is a 68-year-old Lakota elder who told Last Real Indians, “I was supposed to have emergency surgery on my heart, but they (hospital) had scheduling problems. Every night they would prep me for surgery which went on for four or five days. Every night they would shave my chest and stomach and wouldn’t feed me.”
Being blind, Traversie said he didn’t even know what was done to him until a RCRH employee came into his room and advised him to have pictures taken of his chest and abdomen as soon as he got home. He says she told him that she could not testify for him, but that her conscience got the better of her and she didn’t agree with what they did to him.
Last Real Indians asked retired nurse, Joyce Anderson, to view the photograph of Traversie’s injuries. She was a surgical nurse for nine years and worked on the heart team at Baptist Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. She said, “It appears the area under the incision was done with a scalpel for drainage of the incision. The other wounds seem to be necrotic, meaning the tissue is dead. This could indicate the wounds were burned into his skin.”