At 9:30pm on a Friday night, Dinisha Ball was out at a club celebrating her new job, her friend’s promotion, and one of their last nights they would spend together before her friend moved across the country. Both women turned down men’s advances because they had partners, and they just wanted to spend time with each other.
Dinisha was approached by a particularly persistent man – and the next thing she remembered was waking up in a bed in an unknown location, next to the man.
She felt out of it, like her mind and body were two entirely separate things. She lost consciousness again, and woke up – in the same place, with the same man, who was now on top of her.
Dinisha was more coherent this time and managed to push the man off of her. He offered to drive her back to her car, but she told him to drive her to her friend’s motel room.
There, upon reuniting with her friend and her boyfriend, she burst into tears. She was too distraught to put the events of last night into words. Dinisha’s friends called her fiancé, who had been in a state since Dinisha never returned home last night.
Dinisha just wanted to go home, but her fiancé, Daniel, insisted, “We need to get you to a doctor.”
They first went to an emergency room, told the receptionist that Dinisha needed a rape kit because she’d been sexually assaulted. The receptionist just asked, “Do you have health insurance?”
Dinisha had just started her new job; her insurance hadn’t kicked in yet.
They were ultimately turned away.
Daniel had to repeat this process at another hospital before they finally found a place where Dinisha could get a rape kit. But even then, it wasn’t easily received. Daniel had to yell at the receptionist, “We’ve been to two hospitals already. I have the paperwork from the other hospital telling us this is where we needed to go! … Make it happen.”
Over 12 hours had lapsed between the time of Dinisha’s rape and when she finally given a rape kit. It was too late to be able to determine whether or not she’d been drugged.
Daniel, in a desperate attempt to find his fiancée the right help after the subpar support of hospital staff, even called the police. But they did little to aid with Dinisha’s case. Despite her compliance with hospital staff and police officers, her case was dropped because she apparently hadn’t cooperated with them.
"I was equally victimized by this system as I was by the guy [who raped me]," Dinisha said about the entire series of events. "I tried to handle the situation responsibly, but it was out of my hands. I had no control."
Unfortunately, Dinisha’s case is not unique. Many rape victims don’t report their cases of assault because the process of reporting it feels more of a hassle than receiving justice.
Senators and sexual assault advocates are now working to have the process of reporting sexual assault be more accessible and supportive of all these victims.
