[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Sickle cell crisis can be very dramatic. The police might have done little or nothing wrong in this case, and not had a clue as to what was going on.

“Severe pain is the most common of sickle cell disease emergencies (acute sickle cell crises).”

A crisis can have one of four distinctive patterns:

1) Excruciating bone pain.
2) Sudden acute chest pain and coughing of blood.
3) Abdominal crisis. Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
4) Severe joint crisis limiting movement.

At the same time, lots of possibilities for internal organ damage and impairment. CNS problems including strokes. Retinal detachment and bleeding in the eyes. Kidney disease and failure. Priapism (persistent, painful erection) is common in males. Heart attack and liver damage.

With PTSD icing on that cake.

[arthurus]

Sickle cell created the only race crisis we have had around here since the 60s. A Negro 14 year old who was given the option of Boot Camp or a long time in Juvie chose boot camp with the enthusiastic support of his mother. He got in a stressful situation with "sarge" yelling in his face and got pushed down. The sickle cell that Mom didn't tell them about because she feared he would not get to go to Boot Camp killed him. Mucho demonstrations and lawsuits later Boot Camp got shut down and officers got fired, the sheriff got invited upstairs to the Capitol to work for the governor to get a good man out of a bad situation, and Mom collected some millions.

It was partly Mom's fault but the physical exam before sending a kid to Boot Camp probably should be a bit more rigorous. It was known that you don't subject a sickle cell kid to that kind of stress and it was, of course known, that a percentage of Negroes have the trait.