Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Aaron at Diamond Ranch Academy

A human organisation HEAL-ONLINE has collected a number of testimonies from teenagers who have been forced to live at the facility. Here is one covering a period between 2007 and 2008. All rights belong to the original author:
I, _____ Aaron [Private]_____________, declare and state as follows:

  1. [NAME OF PROGRAM]..Diamond Ranch Academy
  2. [LOCATION OF PROGRAM] Hurricane Utah
  3. [PERIOD OF INTERNMENT MM/YY TO MM/YY] 6/23/06-12-23-07
  4. [DECLARATIVE STATEMENT] Yes

    Living with the ghosts--a donation to the present and future

    There I am torn from reality into a pseudo-society which my dog gets better treatment then these people. I have eaten out of a bright metal bowl on the ground while Utah thunderstorms shed ounces of water into my 16 oz of barely thawed out rice. Slowly and slowly I started to realize how much I had changed from a hard drug addict to a Brainwashed cult member. Being locked in a 450 square foot white cinderblock room hopeless while I am seriously wishing I was in jail where I can be myself. Everywhere I went they went single file without a word being spoken. Many nights I remember crawling in my bed with drops of urine on my sheets from a top bunk that had a teenager with a bladder issue. I found myself at times in a shower that had feces in it from a teen in my family of 10 who did not belong at a tough love facility... Adding to the issue there where a lack of nursing for anything. All types and sorts where sent to this tough love camp, anywhere between children dealing with family lose to gang members Aged 12-17 ½. I didn’t see my parents for 7 months at a time. That was against the law so they had to make an exception.

    Therapy was meaningless and most of the time was overlooked here you can see myself with my therapist. The kid who did all that on my mattress is in the green.(http://www.diamondranchacademy.com/therapy/therapeutic-program.php)They legally have to take you out once a week to speak with you and once every two weeks you can call your parents. In this picture my therapist decided to double up sessions to accommodate the increase in people. When this happened the normal 8 beds per dorm maximum turned into 8 people in bunks and six on the floor. Not to get into more detail about malpractice I can recall a therapist being fired for an “issue” with a girl. No one said anything and the girl got pulled from the program. Obviously something happened. A lot of this went on daily the thing is in the middle of nowhere next to a polygamist colony no one really cares.

    They had a system of cites which was a alternative of punishment. I ended up with over 365 or pieces of paper each paper for a different thing I did wrong one week. That’s how much I stopped caring and ended up being sent to homeless for a good 7 months of my program. This was there hardest form of punishment which had happened to be the first part of the program. I had a lot of exercise a lot of rice a lot of punishment. When they are bored at 3 am and want to torment someone you get sent out at 3 am in the morning. In the middle of winter for things as little as sharing food you would receive this. I lost over 10 pounds of muscle all my body fat and due to the fact I was always sitting Indian style I have herniated l4 and l5 discs. I was involved in and everything that functioned there and pretty much helped out at every job. I knew how they worked and it pissed them off that I knew that they lied to my parents that I was losing weight naturally. Go ahead and put fat camps out of work if you must but this is more like a concentration camp. I would try and write home or tell my parents how I felt on the phone but the more I let out the truth the more they hung up or tore up my postcards. Check this out though this is the most important factor of the program. If you write your parents your being abused they rip it up.

    I have seen a male physically restrain a girl while she screamed for him to get off her and started crying from the amount of force he applied to the restraint. WHERE WAS THE FEMALE STAFF HMM? Sounds FOXY to me.

    I have seen friends restrained in urine while urinating due to lack of bathroom and being forced to drink a gallon of water daily. Obviously they told you when you can speak, eat, sleep, turn you head to look, use the bathroom. The worst part out of everything was the rice and lentils. I would go days without any nutrients. There is mold all over the ceilings above the kitchen. When you stole staff food you would be forced to eat food with nothing but rice soaked in pickle juice and sauerkraut. They even went as far to soak oatmeal in hot pickle juice. It was so acidic kids where throwing up and I would get a bowl down and try to not throw up. Yet the thing is they made rules like if one person stole food in homeless they would make everyone suffer. That’s called blanket punishment so I gave up and stopped eating sauerkraut. After being threatened to be restrained for 30 minutes and have a fat feeding needle stuck in my arm I had a bowl of sauerkraut a day to keep the needle away. The third week there I received serious food poisoning from rice that had hand sanitizer snuck into it by a deranged kitchen staff. He was making food unsupervised at snuck behind the camera. So the cooks leave at night and leave the cooking up to the kids. Most of the teens did the work due to that fact. You can find proof that they let 13 year olds handle and manage large amounts of food without any certifications or permits after they fed “fresh” food to goats. Hands and dishes never washed. Out of everything that pissed me off I find that the place ends up taking in the teens and baptizing them into a LDS and this is with the family that owns the place. There is no limit to what the family would do. One time I tried to tell a parent and her son not to come here and was lectured on how I should express those feelings to her directly. So if reading this and trying to figure out this place get in touch with any kid and ask did you enjoy it.

    As far as dorms go nasty beds that have been used from 2002 have holes dust mites and 90% have urine and other fluids on them. Mold in the pipes no hot water at night unless its summer. 5 minute showers without soap sometimes. Other malpractices include hiding bedding when state inspection comes. I have spoken with state inspection but they seem to give three craps in the wind what I had to say.

    There have seen combinations of cocktails given to recovering minds such as high doses of three different psychotropic mood controllers and high doses of amphetamine based medication while taking a benzodiazepine. . In the morning we would be forced to take medication and eat food which had no nutritional value. Lucky me I had been given only one anti depressant. There was this big book that had all our names in it that we would sign with our name next to the medication we took. Sometimes I would catch of others pages. It seemed to me they loved giving out lithium for about everything.

    Early one day I witnessed a child have the most intense panic attack I ever have seen. The kid told us he had been raped beaten and abused his whole life the staff knew this and yet he had to pull a cart by himself while we watched when he snapped they had four staff one per limb towards breaking point. Not the kind of treatment someone with that emotional baggage deserves. With knees on the back of his neck, and being PINCHED on every pressure point the fifteen year old had. This also was the most distraught I have ever seen someone yet he still managed to barely breathe. I have over 30 different voices screaming out that echo in my mind from this treatment. I can recall my first day in the beginning stage where I was sent face down into lava rocks by the programs owner son, yet there was grass next to the lava. I thought to myself later on in the program what I had gotten my first day beats getting your arm broken like a thirteen year old 90 pound sixth grader did for not obeying program structure. Who did this didn’t believe the 13 year old child and forced him do psychical exercise with a broken arm. Then when the kid started crying, he was forced to do something else other and then forced to keep running.

    Who may ever send your child here this place is filled with deception (http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=381747488&albumID=1143602&imageID=17232469) The kids are told to smile and that’s are places/websites you can look up there so many cover ups and the staffs past which include but not limited to resisting arrest dealing and hard drug usage. The family uses this place as a front for stealing at the damage to many young struggling individuals. My family is in debt over 100,000. The things I’ve come forward about will help close doors that have been open too long and I will not rest tell this is my gone to an end. There will be more of these letters as I am very connected with lifelong friends who suffered here. There will be others including staff willing to aid in this effort. I added personal links of pictures due to my creditability based on the facts I have. It is great to read a letter of one of my homeless students (homeless is the beginning) I had mentored at the end of my program. I am grateful for a website such as this and will do all in my power to make the best description. Please understand this is an account of over a year and a half of my life.

    http://www.diamondranchacademy.com/program/testimonials.php They believe that there 49 percent of my custody during 6/21/06-12/21/07 “ENTITLES” them to any picture taken or letters written of or by me. I am still on DRA’s website .I called the family to take me off from a unblocked number giving my name. Yet they still have my name and a few pictures. DIAMOND RANCH ACADEMY TWO WRONGS DON’T MAKE A RIGHT -THAT’S WHAT YOU TOLD ME-PLEASE HELP IF YOU HAVE SUFFERED UNDER THE CARE OF DIAMOND RANCH ACADEMY.

    I give HEAL permission to use this statement. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on ___July 20th________________, 2009.


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