During a November 20 confrontation between the Morton County Sheriff’s Office and Water Protectors at the construction site of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, a deputy threw a concussion grenade that exploded near Sophia Wilansky. It tore much of her forearm off. Her father has released extremely graphic photos that can be seen here. She is 21, a resident of New York, who had joined hundreds of others to oppose the building of the pipeline through ancestral lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Paul Blume, from KMSP-TV in Minneapolis, conducted a heartrending interview with Sophia’s father,
Her father told him: “She says the police are trying to hurt people. They’re not trying to control the situation, they’re trying to hurt people, intentionally, purposefully. Someone could die, someone will die, if something isn’t done.”
The sheriff’s office claimed the protectors had blown up one of their own with a propane bomb. But shrapnel extracted by surgeons who operated on Sophia’s arm is being kept as evidence to show that the sheriff’s office lied about the incident. Just as it lied when it claimed to the media the protectors set fires and that deputies put them out with a water cannon instead of deploying it as a weapon and injuring hundreds of those opposing the pipeline.
The attack occurred in freezing weather when protectors tried to unblock a vital highway that the sheriff’s office had pledged it would remove from a bridge weeks ago. This blockade forces hours of delay to travel from the reservation to Bismarck, punishing the Sioux and other locals.
Sophia had been at Standing Rock for three weeks. During the confrontation, she forged to the front line to deliver bottled water to the unarmed protectors standing up against the over-militarized police who are defending the Dakota Access Pipeline and NOT the people and their water supply.
Sophia was initially attended to by Oceti Sakowin medics. The blockade the Water Protectors were trying to open delayed her arrival at medical facilities in Bismarck, 50 miles away. She had to be driven to the hospital there in a private car. The Bismarck hospital is not equipped to deal with the level of vascular injury she suffered, and Sophia was flown to Minneapolis, where she underwent nine hours of surgery to save her arm. She won’t know for another week whether amputation might be required.
The 12-minute interview is below. I’ve bulleted key points from the video plus key quotes.
Call the Department of Justice and demand they investigate and charge the Morton County Sheriff's Department for civil rights abuses against Standing Rock water protectors.
My notes from the video:
• Her father was notified and flew in from NYC to Minneapolis. He said: “She’s a brilliant, strong beautiful girl. She’s extraordinarily capable.”
• Sophia described to her father that the police intentionally left the blockade on the bridge halting local traffic, not merely a burden but an impediment when emergency services are needed.
• He said of her injuries: “The radius bone is significantly missing and all of the arteries are gone. The main nerve is missing. And most of the muscle, 80 percent of the muscle is gone.”
• “Prognosis is multiple surgeries. Best case scenario is the arm stays attached but with very little function.”
• Sophia’s prognosis is harmed by the fact that it took 6-8 hours before she could have surgery, and time was paramount. It’s upsetting that emergency vehicles were prevented from reaching her. (Terrain is such that off-roading is not possible.) Her father said, “This is a human rights violation.”
• “My daughter was shot numerous times with bullets, she’s got bullet wounds all over her body, rubber bullets, or… plastic bullets… they’re made of something that’s less than lethal. But could maim somebody. The police were shooting directly at people’s faces and trying to hit the men in the groin. Sophia was hit in the groin. But she was dressed in such a manner that you couldn’t tell if she was a man or a woman. But they were intentionally trying to hit men in the groin with bullets...”
“Surgeons have taken a vein out of her left thigh to replace her left arm artery with success, but her ulnar artery replacement could not produce a pulse. They’re working on nerves and tendons...”
“She’s devastated. She looks at her arm and it’s not there.”
“She’s in America! She’s not in Iraq or Afghanistan! This is like the wound of someone who is a warrior fighting in a war. This is not a war, she’s just trying to peacefully get people to not destroy the water supply. And they’re trying to kill her.”
“She was planning to spend the winter in North Dakota. She’s so dedicated to the cause.”
“Miraculously, there was a woman on the bridge, and if I could reach out to her and if I could find her I’d love to talk to her. She was an Army veteran. She wrapped her up and carried her off the bridge and got her to a car...”
• He’s only afraid that things are going to get worse.
“She’s afraid right now. She’s worried that someone from [pipeline builder] Energy Transfers Partnership is going to send someone to kill her. She’s actually fearful of her life now. She wants me to stay and make sure she’s protected.”
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Wilansky has received a massive outpouring of support online. A crowdfunding campaign has been established to help pay her medical bills.
