Anonymous’ Waterfall Canyon Academy Testimony

I was forced to watch kids eat dessert in front of me when I couldn’t have any; they would do “Brake Checks” in the vans where the staff was would hit the brakes hard in the middle of driving down a busy street and we’d injure ourselves by hitting our heads into the backs of the seats on impact; One staff, called me a “chola” for the way I did my eyeliner—she later got fired for telling another girl to shave her arms. I was in crutches and didn’t know how to go down the stairs, so one of the staff that didn’t like me, told me the wrong way to go down the stairs in my crutches—I ended up falling down the stairs, hitting my head hard on the windowsill, got knocked out, and didn’t feel my wrist break. When I woke up, I was screaming, and the same staff member that told me to go down the wrong way, left me on the ground for 30 minutes when I was in absolute agony.

They took the girls out, saying “C’mon, ladies, you don’t want to see this drama.” They dragged me to the couch and left me there for 2 hours as I was going into shock. I kept telling them that I felt dizzy and didn’t feel good, but they didn’t listen. It took one of the only caring staff members there to persuade the girls’ director for me to go to the ER. The doctor compared my wrist to an ice cube being shattered by a hammer and not being able to put it back together. He wanted to do surgery that night, but the school refused to do so and made me wait a week in a makeshift splint and ACE bandage before I finally had surgery. I had my camera at the time (which surprisingly did not break during my fall), and I was recording all the X-Rays, all angles of my swollen wrist, everything, until I got back to the house and had to turn the camera into the staff office. The next day, when I went to get my camera, the memory card was taken out, and the staff gaslighted me by saying I was the one that lost it. The staff who told me to go down the stairs the wrong way and left me on the ground went to the girls’ director and claimed that I “threw (my) crutches to the side, and swan dived down the stairs.” I had to be physically held back so I wouldn’t attack that staff member or spit in her face.

The only photo I have documenting my injury, is an MRI picture my OR nurse handed me under the table when I was recovering, before the medical director came in. They also tried to force me to go on a birth control that I didn’t want to have, because I chose Nexplanon. The medical director of the school said that if I refused to get the patch, they’d tell my parents that I ran away and found hard drugs in my system. I had to tell the doctor at my appointment what they were doing, and the doctor threatened to call the state on them, because what they were trying to do was highly illegal. I wrote to HEAL for help, but the head directors, Karen and Kathy, found out and said they would throw me out if I didn’t rescind my statement. I said my father wouldn’t allow that, and Karen laughed and said, “Your father doesn’t love you! Look where he sent you!” They also used takedown tactics that have killed other kids. One staff would be sitting on top of their back, obstructing their breathing, and the other would be sitting on their sacrum, pulling back on their knees, both staff facing each other. When some kids would scream that they were hurting them or they couldn’t breathe, the staff would look at each other, smile, and pull back harder.