Attorneys representing an inmate at Michigan’s only women's prison have filed an emergency motion demanding her immediate removal from the facility, citing her medical deterioration from toxic mold exposure.
The legal filing, submitted Monday on behalf of inmate Krystal Clark, asks a federal judge to order her transfer to an outside medical facility within 24 hours.
Clark has been incarcerated at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility since 2011. She is part of a larger, ongoing class-action lawsuit originally filed against the state in 2019. The lawsuit alleges that inmates have been exposed to toxic black mold, a collapsing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system, and chronically leaking roofs for years.
While prison officials have maintained that air quality tests within the facility show mold levels within normal ranges, Clark’s legal team argues the environment has become life-threatening to their client.
According to the motion, Clark has a severe, documented allergy to mold. Court filings say her health has drastically declined, resulting in respiratory symptoms including chronic coughing, coughing up blood, and nasal bleeding.
Recent clinical tests from infectious disease specialists confirmed that Aspergillus mold was actively growing inside Clark's ears, her attorneys said, causing a diagnosis of a fungal tissue infection and triggering rapid, progressive hearing loss.
Her attorneys said that within the last week, Clark's hearing deteriorated so severely that she now requires an assistive-listening device to communicate over the telephone.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Clark's attorney, Shiraz Khan, said the filing reflected the gravity of Clark's situation.
"The filing asks the court to act before a claimed medical risk becomes irreversible harm," Khan said. "Our goal is to get Krystal Clark the medical attention that she needs, and get her to a facility outside of WHV, where she's not subject to the conditions that she has been for so many years."
Khan said the urgency of Clark's motion is further heightened by recent public reports cited in the document showing that four women incarcerated at WHV have died since May.
"Those deaths are deeply troubling," Khan said. "We are not here to speculate about the cause of those deaths, but four deaths in less than two months are troubling and cannot be ignored."
The motion requests that the court forbid prison officials from relocating Clark to another cell or wing within the facility and requests her complete removal to an outside environment.
A federal judge has yet to rule on the emergency order.
