A former inmate of the Blair County Prison has filed a federal civil rights complaint seeking damages from county officials and the facility’s medical provider due to injuries he received last year when he was pummeled by six other inmates.

Travis J. McClure, 38, of Altoona, charges that he was an inmate of the prison about Aug. 12, 2025, when corrections officers let several inmates out of their cells with directions to attack him.

His lawsuit, filed last week with the United States District Court in Johnstown by Philadelphia lawyers Brian J. Zeiger and Laura Zipin, stated he was punched and kicked repeatedly in the head, face and body.

According to the lawsuit, McClure suffered severe injuries to his nose, his right eye socket and right eye and his jaw. He was also struck in his abdomen.

Despite the obvious swelling and pain McClure was suffering, he was not taken to the UPMC Altoona Emergency Department for 40 hours, the complaint reported.

He was eventually transferred to UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh because of the lack of ophthalmology services at Altoona.

“The two-day delay in providing medical care to Mr. McClure caused him to suffer unnecessary and prolonged pain and suffering, and may have exacerbated his injuries, including the risk of permanent damage to his right eye and vision,” the lawsuit charged.

It emphasized that the symptoms McClure showed after the incident indicated “serious traumatic injuries requiring immediate medical evaluation and treatment,” yet, it charges, the 40-hour delay in taking him to a trauma center was also indicative of the “deliberate indifference” by authorities to McClure’s medical needs.

And, while the focus of the complaint is on the beating of McClure, it also honed in on what it described as the “historic dangerous conditions at the Blair County Prison.”

The lawsuit began its recitation of the past by discussing the overcrowding problem.

While the prison has “a rated capacity” for 337 inmates, the prison often has a population between 370 and 390 inmates and, at times, has housed more than 400 inmates.

In the past year, inmates have filed numerous lawsuits alleging “that they suffered harm due to the horrific conditions and failure to provide medical care at the Blair County Prison,” the complaint continued.

The McClure lawsuit listed several incidents to illustrate the problems that have occurred in the prison.

It began by discussing inmate suicides in 2007 and 2016.

It mentioned an incident in 2024 in which an inmate was beaten by other inmates and he, too, suffered multiple facial injuries.

It focused on a recent class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of inmates and it cited another recent lawsuit in which an inmate complained about being housed in the prison gym with 49 other male inmates — the group served by only one bathroom and shower.

Another inmate complained that the lights for the inmates in the gym are on 24 hours a day.

The recitation cited a recent lawsuit by a female inmate who claims she entered the prison pregnant with twins and stated she informed the prison of her “high risk” pregnancy.

She blames the poor medical care in prison as the reason she eventually miscarried.

“The foregoing cases, spanning from 2007 to the present, demonstrate a persistent and well-settled pattern, practice and custom of constitutional violations at Blair County Prison,” the lawsuit states.

It concludes that Blair County in 2022 conducted a study for a new prison, but that facility probably won’t be completed at least until 2028.

The lawsuit names as defendants the county commissioners, the present warden, who has only been on the job for six months, and the medical staff (employed by PrimeCare Medical of Harrisburg).

It charges that McClure’s Eighth Amendment rights barring cruel and unusual punishment have been violated.

It also charges the county and PrimeCare with deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.

The McClure petition ends by stating, “The overcrowded conditions increased tensions among inmates, overwhelmed the already insufficient staff, and created the environment in which Mr. McClure was attacked.”

As of Thursday, the county prison is no longer housing inmates in the prison’s gymnasium, County Commissioner Dave Kessling, who also serves as the chairman of the county prison board, said Thursday after the commissioners meeting wrapped up.

“We’ve emptied the gym,” Kessling said.

A week ago, Kessling and fellow commissioners Amy Webster and Laura Burke indicated that the county would resume sending inmates to the Centre County Prison for temporary housing, at a cost of $75 per inmate per day.

As of Thursday, they said Blair County has fewer than 10 inmates in the Centre County facility.

The ones transferred are serving county sentences — so their housing in Centre County shouldn’t be “disruptive to the court system” Burke said.

Kessling said the prison gymnasium was also cleared out by transferring of a group of inmates to the state prison system and by some additional housing changes within the prison.

The McClure civil rights complaint has been assigned to federal Magistrate Judge Kezia O.L. Taylor, who presides in Pittsburgh.

Altoona Mirror reporter Kay Stephens also contributed to this article.