Luke Thornhill is scheduled to be released from an Oregon prison in four years.
He’s terrified he might die before then.
He has family waiting for him in Idaho, “And I’m scared I’m never gonna see them again,” Thornhill said during multiple calls with NPR from prison.
He’s scared because he’s been suffering from serious medical issues — including severe abdominal pains, bloody bowel movements and a swollen abdomen — since at least 2022, when he was incarcerated in a different facility. And he says he has not been able to get the treatment that he needs.
“If you looked at my stomach, it bulges out on the right side, like the size of a grapefruit. And it just hurts all the time,” Thornhill says.
Now, he feels worse than ever, he says. Constant pain makes it difficult even to sleep through the night.
“If I’m not careful with what I eat or drink or careful of how I move then I’m in worse pain and bleeding even worse.”
Thornhill was sentenced to 80 months in federal prison on drug charges in March 2023.