A man incarcerated at a south Alabama prison collapsed, languished and eventually died inside a cell block as fellow prisoners shouted, banged on walls and splashed water into the hallway in an attempt to get a guard's attention.

Two men at Fountain Correctional Facility say Christopher Hurst's death on Sunday came amid dangerously low staffing levels: One prisoner says no guards were on post at the cell block in which Hurst died, and the prison only has a third of the officers for which it is allotted. A second prisoner says an administrative focus on minor disciplinary issues at the expense of life-or-death concerns — including a threat from the Fountain warden to withhold meals if men did not have the correct haircut — is turning the facility into a pressure cooker.

A prisons spokesperson said Hurst, 40, was found by prison staff unresponsive at approximately 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 1. He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later after attempts to revive him.

A prisoner who was housed in an adjacent cell block told the Montgomery Advertiser on Tuesday that he was washing clothes on Sunday afternoon when someone began yelling, 'Man down."

Cody, whose last name the Advertiser is withholding, said he was housed in E dorm and Hurst was in D. The two blocks, open dorm areas with connected bathrooms, are separated from each other but men can communicate between the two. An officer post hallway connects the two dorms to a main hallway, and men can see into the guard post from a bathroom window.

The guard's post was empty when Hurst collapsed, Cody said. As men tried to revive Hurst, the dorm erupted, Cody said, to try to get him help. Using 5-gallon coolers from the dorms, men tried to splash water into the guard post, in the hopes someone walking through the main hallway would notice water on the floor and come to investigate.

"We were banging on everything in there," Cody said. "Doing everything we could to get somebody's attention."

Cody isn't sure how long it took — "It was a long, long time" — but estimates it could have taken as long as 45 minutes before an inmate in the outside hallway noticed the commotion and found a guard.

The Advertiser on Wednesday asked ADOC a number of questions regarding Hurst's death, including:

How long was the gap between Hurst's collapse and medical response?

Were officers supposed to be posted in the guard post between E and D dorms and, if so, has ADOC reviewed any available video footage to determine if the officers were present for their entire shift?

If there were not officers assigned to the E/D post at the time of Hurst's collapse, why?

Prison officials declined to answer these questions, citing an ongoing investigation. Hurst's cause of death is pending an autopsy report.

There are currently 91 security staff assigned to Fountain, spread over two 12-hour shifts, a third of the 270 officers the prison should have, ADOC said.

In addition to drastic understaffing, Fountain is 148% over inmate capacity, with 1,268 men housed there as of Sept. 4.

The extreme understaffing and overcrowding in Fountain, which plagues the entire Alabama prison system, has turned the prison population into a pressure cooker, one man who advocates for prisoner rights said.

Kenneth Traywick, who is incarcerated at Fountain, told the Advertiser prior to Hurst's death that prison administration is focused more on micromanaging dorm dust levels than addressing the widespread, documented violence and drug use in Alabama prisons.

In an August prison newsletter, Warden Mary Cooks threatened to withhold food from any man whose haircut and facial hair was not in compliance with prison rules.

"Inmates who are found without an armband, haircut, and shave will receive disciplinary action and will not be entitled to any services (Feeding, Canteen, Snack-Line, etc.)," the newsletter states.

Cooks also wrote that the law library, where prisoners often research their ongoing legal cases, would be closed if the institution wasn't properly cleaned.

Traywick said he requested meetings with prison administrators about the food issue, but said he was shut down when he tried to challenge the warden on the constitutionality of the threat.

"The newsletter is in contradiction of constitutional rights and basic human needs," Traywick said in a phone call with the Montgomery Advertiser in late August. "They told me, 'We're not refusing you food. If you don't get in compliance, you are refusing to eat yourself.'"

On Thursday, the Advertiser asked ADOC if it considers it within a warden's purview to withhold food from men for non-medical reasons, or if any state regulations allow correctional staff to threaten to withhold food.

"This is not ADOC policy and we are following up with the warden of Fountain Correctional Facility," prisons spokesperson Bob Horton said via email.

Traywick said "minute, micromanagement policies" such as men's haircuts are pulling valuable and rare resources away from more pressing matters.

"High rates of violence. An extreme epidemic of drug use. And a major part of the population with no incentive to participate in the above policies because they have no form of good-time or rehabilitative incentives," Traywick said. "Without that, without staff being able to enforce these policies, you are creating chaos and a time bomb waiting to explode. And they don't have the staff to deal with that chaos. They're expecting us to be in compliance, but they're not in compliance themselves."

The Alabama Department of Corrections this spring was the subject of a damning Department of Justice report, which outlined barbaric conditions within prison walls and said the state "fails to protect" its prisoners.

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In April, the Montgomery Advertiser authenticated a cache of photos provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center illustrating the bloody brutality in St. Clair Correctional Facility. Interviews with current prisoners, formerly incarcerated men and their families revealed a pervasive culture of violence, blackmail and drug abuse which they say is dangerous for all involved and counterproductive for rehabilitating men who will re-enter society one day.

Their individual stories support the federal findings of ongoing extortion, a drug crisis and veritable war zones inside prison walls.

State lawmakers on Wednesday met to discuss ongoing steps to address acknowledged issues within state prisons, such as hiring more officers. Multiple prisoners, including Traywick, have expressed dismay that the DOJ to date has not taken action after the report.

More:At prison group meeting, 2 views of conditions in Alabama's corrections facilities

"Our concern is our safety, and our rehabilitation," Traywick said. "Our lives are at stake here. ... We've stopped many, many acts of violence inside these dorms ourselves. We're afraid someone else is going to get seriously hurt. These are men's lives at stake. They say they want Alabama to come up with an Alabama solution, yet the only thing that's being implemented right now is putting paint on the wall."

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Melissa Brown at 334-240-0132 or mabrown@gannett.com.