Around 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 4, 2022, I left my dorm in an Alabama prison to speak to a friend about our next day’s work in the laundry room. Rain drizzled on me as I exited the dorm and went outside.

I walked down a wheelchair ramp at the front door to our dorm. Then I cut across a patch of cement in the direction of my destination. I failed to see the new, slick enamel paint coating a spot on the concrete, but my foot found it with ease. First, a slip. Then a crunch. Then a hard, jarring impact on my left side.

Everything happened in a couple seconds, but the damage was severe. It felt like the crunch of breaking a chicken leg off of the thigh. I had broken my ankle in three places.

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I was quickly loaded into a wheelchair by friends and rushed to the prison infirmary. After an evaluation, I was taken to the prison’s back gate, placed in a van and carried away to a free-world hospital.

This all might seem like the normal course of action following a traumatic injury like this. But it’s what happens next where Alabama prisons fail incarcerated people — and their families.

Once inmates leave the confines of an Alabama institution, all information on us goes into a black hole. When we’re outside the facility, there are increased limitations around contact with family and, in general, loved ones can’t know where we’ve been taken. There are exceptions for life-threatening circumstances, but in most cases the Alabama Department of Corrections makes it extremely difficult for families to know the status of their loved one.

We can’t call our families, they can’t come see us, nor can they know where we’ve been taken. As a reason for this flawed policy, they cite security concerns such as preventing escapes and keeping inmates and corrections officers safe. I’ve come to understand both of those reasons, but I don’t understand why loved ones are left in the dark about the incident, injury and health status of the incarcerated patient.

After breaking my ankle, I remained at the hospital for 11 days and received two surgeries on my ankle.

My family and friends had no clue what was happening to me, and this was a problem. I always call my mom in the early afternoon on Saturdays, and my sister on Wednesdays, to hear what’s happening in their lives. But once I started missing those calls, my family became concerned. They started calling my prison.

Here’s what they were told: “Your son is in the hospital, but he’s still alive.” They provided no other details or means of contacting me.

According to a statement provided in an email from the Alabama Department of Corrections, “Inmates are not allowed to make phone calls from the hospital for security reasons. Inmate’s emergency contacts are notified when the inmate’s condition is determined to be critical by medical personnel.”

Since my broken ankle wasn’t potentially fatal, my family was never notified of what happened to me. And since I wasn’t permitted to call my family, I could not inform them myself. They were left to worry about me.

Perhaps what happened to me should come as no surprise. Alabama’s prison system is rife with problems. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Alabama and the Alabama Department of Corrections, claiming our prison system had violated the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Over a recent four-year period, more than 698 incarcerated people died in Alabama prisons, according to research by the nonprofit Alabama Appleseed.

My prison, William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, has its own slew of problems. A description from the Department of Corrections’ own website reads: “Donaldson specializes in controlling repeat and/or multiple violent offenders with lengthy sentences that are behaviorally difficult to manage.” Last summer, seven inmates died at Donaldson in just one week. And this August, one incarcerated man was able to gain access to a pistol and carry it around the facility. Thankfully, the gun was not fired.

Against this backdrop, you can imagine what our mothers might think and feel when they hear the words: “Your son is in the hospital, but he’s still alive.” That response opens the imagination to all manner of horrific scenarios.

What’s maddening about all of this is what the Department of Corrections is holding back: That I broke my ankle in a freak accident. People do this all the time. Hell, my mom’s sister has done it twice in the last two years.

But instead of my 75-year-old mom having peace of mind, she was left to assume that I had been through something terrible.

After my 11 days in the hospital, I returned to prison and was finally able to call my mom and inform her of my injury. Her breath was shaky with worry when she answered. Then she told me: “I can finally go to sleep at night.”

When I heard that, I cried.

The secrecy around my injury brought serious emotional damage to my mom. Now, if I call her at an unscheduled time, the first words are not “Hello.” Her first words are “What’s wrong?”

This incident made me reflect on all the unnecessary emotional pain loved ones have experienced while trying to obtain important information about an incarcerated person. A journalist friend once asked me to check on another inmate at my prison because his family had heard he was stabbed but was unable to get any information. Thankfully he was OK.

The problem is solvable. Security secrets don’t have to be exposed. We just want our loved ones to have clarity — when the state can reasonably and safely provide it. All the Department of Corrections needs to do is broaden the medical emergency notification system. If someone is going to be in the hospital for a prolonged period of time, the Department of Corrections should let that family know the extent of their loved one’s ailment and their current condition.

“Hey, your son is at a hospital,” someone could say. “We can’t tell you where for security reasons, but he slipped and fell, and broke his ankle. He’s fine, though, and we’ll have him call you as soon as he returns to prison.”

This essay was published in partnership with Prison Journalism Project, which publishes independent journalism by incarcerated writers and others impacted by incarceration. Sign up for The Prison Journalism Project’s newsletter, or follow them on Instagram or X.

Richard Fox is an incarcerated writer at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility. He is a native of Birmingham, and was raised in Tarrant. Richard became interested in writing through the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project, an Auburn University initiative.