DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) — Each word Jessica Stechmuller says cuts like a dagger.

"Even now, hearing that I'm a victim is hard," she said. "When you tell the story of sexual assault, you have to remember what happened."

Each time she tells that story, it brings pain.

"I was sexually assaulted by a very close friend," Stechmuller said. "I did not understand what had just happened. I actually had to call a friend ... I called him within 30 minutes of it happening ... and my friend had to flatly say: 'Jessica, you were raped.'"

But for Stechmuller, that trauma was made worse by how many times she had to tell her story as she got bounced from one hospital to another.

"It made me feel like they didn't see it as important," she said. "It made me feel like what had happened to me didn't matter."

When it comes to sexual assault, Illinois hospitals fall into two categories — transfer or treatment. Treatment hospitals are able to perform forensic rape kits with a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program. Transfer hospitals are not.

HSHS St. Mary's Hospital in Decatur switched from treatment to transfer in August 2021, sending patients to its sister hospital in Springfield, HSHS St. John's Hospital.

Stechmuller was one survivor affected by this policy. Brenda Steen was another.

"You feel like you've lost control," Steen said.

Like Stechmuller, Steen initially showed up at St. Mary's. As a transfer facility, St. Mary's could not treat either woman. Instead of being transferred to Decatur Memorial Hospital (DMH), a treatment facility only four miles away, the women were only offered a transfer to St. Johns — which is more than 40 miles away.

"My first reaction was: 'How am I getting there?'" Steen said, recalling the conversation with St. Mary's nurses. "[They replied:] 'Oh, we'll send you by ambulance.' [I asked:] 'Well, how am I getting back?' [They responded:] 'I don't know.'"

Steen declined the ambulance ride and drove herself to DMH the next day. Stechmuller drove herself to St. John's the morning after she reported as well. Both of them had to once again tell their story and relive the trauma.

"It's deflating," Steen said. "It's emotionally draining. It's overwhelming in and of itself."

For Stechmuller, that trauma manifested in a more physical sense.

"You start to feel something in the back of your throat because you don't want to tell the story, because you don't want to remember the story," she said.

Under Illinois law, the Illinois Department of Public Health can only approve a request to become a transfer hospital if transferring the patient does not "unduly burden the sexual assault survivor."

The law also states any hospital in a county with less than 1 million residents and a four-year university (ex. Millikin University in Decatur) cannot be a transfer hospital unless there's another hospital approved for sexual assault treatment in a 20 mile radius of the college. That means St. Mary's can only work as a transfer hospital because DMH is able to accept sexual assault patients for forensic exams.

St. Mary's declined interview requests, but issued the following statement:

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the national nursing shortage has been exacerbated, causing health care organizations throughout the country to make changes and adjust to current conditions. HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital was not immune to this. Staffing levels continue to fluctuate and the need for qualified nurses has never been greater. The number of available Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) is lower still, due to the large number of hours and extremely high level of competency the certification requires.

While St. Mary’s Hospital attempted to recruit SANE certified nurses, a contract was established with HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Springfield to accept the transfer of sexual assault victims to ensure appropriate treatment was always available. This allowed patients to receive treatment and allowed qualified staff to collect evidence of the sexual assault as well as provide counseling after the trauma these patients have endured. We originally chose St. John’s as they are within our hospital system. This allowed us to complete the transfer agreement in a timely fashion and assure the patients who put their trust in us had immediate resources available. However, due to the stress a patient faces and the concerns regarding transportation and travel time, we continue to collaborate with Decatur Memorial Hospital to improve access to SANE services to the patients we both serve in our community.

St. Mary’s Hospital pledges to continue the search for qualified nursing colleagues to bolster our staffing levels and bring back services that were disrupted during the last two years as well as collaborate with Memorial Health to meet the needs of our community.

As of publication (3/31/2022), no timeline for a transfer agreement has been released by St. Mary's or DMH.

In response to WAND News asking about a possible agreement, DMH also released a statement reading:

Decatur Memorial Hospital accepts all transfers, including sexual assault transfers, as we are able to based on current capacity and conditions, whether or not we have a transfer agreement in place with the transferring facility. We do have transfer agreements in place as requested by others and as needed for our own operations.

Regardless, advocacy groups, such as the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault (ICASA), want more to be done to close what they call a loophole in the law.

"The intent is not for hospitals to transfer only to their network hospitals," said ICASA CEO Carrie Ward. "The idea is to transfer to the nearest hospital."

Decatur's local rape crisis center agrees.

"We respect St. Mary's decision to become a transfer hospital," said Cathy Byers, the executive director of Growing Strong Sexual Assault Center. "We just really want them to keep the Decatur rape victims in Decatur."

Transfers also make it harder on police departments investigating these crimes.

"It just adds another step in there that can be cumbersome and burdensome on our manpower — which is already tight and limited as it is," said Decatur Police Chief Shane Brandel. "But honestly, that's the least of my concerns. I'm really more concerned about the victim."

Brandel reports at least five cases have been affected by the policy switch at St. Mary's. In one particular case, he said a survivor simply declined to file a police report or have a rape kit done at all when that person was told St. Mary's couldn't complete a kit onsite. The potential transfer to Springfield cost officers the ability to build a rapport with that survivor.

"The first interaction that law enforcement has with a victim can really set the stage for the rest of the entire investigation," Brandel said. "Part of that, I think, is just about the trust."

That trust is also critical beyond law enforcement, from the hospital nurses in the SANE program tasked with performing the exams to the rape crisis centers providing the long term support.

"This is a very hard path to navigate," Byers said. "They are in trauma. We want them to focus on their healing and that's it."

Even after a case is resolved in the legal system, the trauma of the assault - and its aftermath - remains.

"[The examination process] is very intrusive because ... their body is now a crime scene," Byers said.

A crime scene that tells a painful story, like the ones Steen and Stechmuller know all too well.

"When you've been sexually assaulted, you don't want to believe that you've been sexually assaulted," Stechmuller said. "When you've been sexually assaulted, you don't want to talk about being sexually assaulted ... To sit in a car and think 'I'm going to tell my story to these people. I'm going to get a rape kit done and I'm going to talk to the police,' that's a lot to think when all you want to do is go home, shower and forget that it ever happened."

To find a rape crisis center in your community, click here, or if you need immediate assistance, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.