In the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, Cheryl Thompson said she woke up in her driveway.

She wasn’t sure how she got there.

Hours earlier, she’d gone to a bar less than a half mile from her Cobden, Illinois, home to meet a friend and celebrate New Year’s Eve.

She doesn’t remember leaving and said she woke up sore.

“I know I was sexually assaulted,” she told NBC 5 Investigates.

Her medical records show she went to Union County Hospital hours later with concerns someone may have spiked her drink.

According to her medical records she shared with NBC 5 Investigates, the emergency room physician’s wrote that Cheryl repeatedly said she did not think she had been sexually assaulted – something Cheryl disputes.

According to Cheryl and the voluntary statement she gave Illinois State Police eight days later, she said the doctor told her they didn’t do rape kits there – that she’d need to be transferred and need a referral to see a sexual assault nurse examiner at another hospital more than 70 miles away.

Thompson also said the doctor was dismissive of her claims.

“As you can tell, I am not a thin woman, but he had the audacity to say to me – based on your size and your height, it is highly unlikely that anyone would try to assault you,” Thompson said.

An NBC 5 Investigates’ review of a Union County Hospital inspection report from May of 2024 found the hospital violated the state statute when it failed to contact police – which is required by state law.

And even though they were giving Cheryl a referral to go elsewhere, the hospital should have notified authorities, inspectors noted, because they collected Cheryl’s urine and blood, which was sent off to a lab to be tested for a date rape drug.

Cheryl ultimately left and learned she could get a rape kit exam performed much closer to home – about 15 miles away.

But she said she was so traumatized by her experience at Union County Hospital that she waited another eight days before going to have her exam. By then, she’d already showered. She said a nurse took photos of bruising on her thighs and cuts and scrapes on her knees and elbows.

“When a victim comes into the ER, we’re already at our most vulnerable state,” Cheryl said, fighting back tears. “We are looking for doctors and nurses to treat us with some human decency and to do what you’re supposed to do. The Hippocratic oath says to do no harm. But in my case, not only was I victimized in my own driveway, I was re-victimized when I went to the hospital.”

As of our reporting deadline Monday, Union County Hospital had not responded to multiple calls and emails seeking comment from NBC 5 Investigates over the past two weeks.

A woman who answered the phone there Monday referred an investigative reporter to another hospital representative.

A spokeswoman for Deaconness Health, which owns Union County Hospital, defended its actions to American Public Media for a story earlier this year, adding that “not all treatment hospitals in southern Illinois accept transfers from other hospitals.”

With the help of a counselor, Thompson later filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Public Health about her experience and shared with NBC 5 Investigates a copy of a letter sent to her by IDPH in late October.

The letter confirms that her complaint was investigated, and that “the evidence the surveyors collected did confirm some of your allegations and deficiencies were cited. An acceptable plan of correction was submitted by the facility and approved by the department.”

NBC 5 Investigates found Cheryl’s story was not a one-off.

An NBC 5 investigation revealed dozens of Illinois hospitals failed to properly treat victims of sexual assault.

An Illinois law known as the Sexual Assault Survivors Emergency Treatment Act – or SASETA – was designed to ensure victims of rape and sexual assault get proper care. The law requires that hospitals offer forensic services including rape kits, and that they contact police, collect forensic photographs with the patients’ consent and provide them with things like access to a shower, calling a friend or a rape crisis counselor, among other services.

But our review of six years’ worth of hospital inspection records from the IDPH found time and again that did not happen.

Between 2018 and 2024, NBC 5 Investigates found 88 hospitals failed to properly treat victims of sexual assault, according to our review of thousands of pages of state health department inspection reports.

In many cases, the hospitals were found to have poor recordkeeping – failing to document if a rape kit was collected or contact information for the victim.

But we also found more egregious errors, including Illinois hospitals that failed to contact police, left rape kits sitting on shelves for years or told victims they couldn’t offer them rape kits services and sent them home.

Among our findings:

• MercyHealth Hospital in Rockford failed to photograph 54 sexual assault victims between 2019 and 2021. When inspectors from the state health department spoke with the hospital’s sexual assault nurse examiner during a 2021 inspection, she said the hospital “does not have the means to store the photos… so they do not take (them).”
• At Memorial Hospital in Springfield, inspectors on a 2021 inspection found four sealed rape kits had been left in a cabinet. Two of them had been sitting on a shelf for five years.
• During a 2024 inspection at the University of Chicago Medical Center, state health inspectors found four pediatric rape kits had been sitting on a shelf for nearly a year.
• At Insight Hospital on Chicago’s south side, a 2022 inspection found the hospital failed to provide forensic services to seven patients because the hospital lacked supplies and lacked trained staff – all seven patients were sent home.

Of the above referenced hospitals, none would agree to be interviewed and only the University of Chicago Medical Center and Mercy Health provided statements, which did not directly answer our questions.

The University of Chicago Medicine statement read:

“The University of Chicago Medicine health system, which includes Comer Children’s Hospital, operates one of the region’s busiest Level 1 trauma centers, and our specialized emergency services — including care for survivors of sexual assault — are among the most in-demand in Illinois and surrounding areas. Each year, our dedicated team of specially trained Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners provide 24/7 care for as many as 450 pediatric and adult patients, many of whom are transferred by hospitals unable to offer this highly specialized and labor-intensive service.

During a routine regulatory review by the Illinois Department of Public Health, a citation was issued for not escalating that a limited number of forensic examination kits, which had been appropriately collected and reported by UChicago Medicine, were still awaiting pickup by law enforcement.

In response to the incident, UChicago Medicine strengthened its monitoring and auditing process to ensure our escalations and notifications comply with all regulatory requirements.

This is important and much-needed work, and our clinical teams are committed to their roles serving as vital medical resources for patients across the region who are navigating complex trauma.”

In a separate statement, MercyHealth provided a separate statement, which it attributed to Chief Medical Officer, Dr. John Dorsey:

“Our hearts go out to our patients who are victims of sexual assault. At Mercyhealth, we want to care for all our patients in the best way possible.  State assessments like this often provide an opportunity for us to identify ways to better prepare to meet our patients’ needs.  Mercyhealth used this opportunity to ensure we provide the best care possible. We took steps to correct our processes in regard to photographing victims of sexual assaults and are now in full compliance when it comes to caring for sexual assault victims.” 

“That’s just outrageous. Stuff like that should not be happening,” said Cheryl Thompson.

While Illinois law requires that hospitals offer treatment for sexual assault victims, it also includes a carve out that allows hospitals to send patients to other facilities by creating transfer agreements with other hospitals.

Of the 185 hospital inspection reports we reviewed, we found 85 with transfer agreements. And more than half of those 85 send their patients between 40 to 80 miles away – which sexual assault advocates say can place an undue burden on victims.

The concern is that it may create a chilling effect where victims will be turned away at one hospital and ultimately won’t travel to get a rape kit done somewhere else.

Illinois state Rep. Kelly Cassidy wants to close that loophole in Illinois law and place guardrails on how far a hospital can transfer a sexual assault survivor.

“We are systemically failing survivors,” Cassidy told NBC 5 Investigates in a recent interview. “We’ve tried to build in some work arounds for hospitals who can’t meet that barrier. It’s gone too far to be perfectly honest with you. We’ve got hospitals that are permitted to send someone 70 miles away.”

We reached out to the Union County State’s Attorney’s Office to check on the status of Cheryl Thompson’s case. So far, we have not heard back. Cheryl maintains she was sexually assaulted.

“I know I was. I just don’t have the proof now,” she said.