psych patients

[HospitalPatrol]

I work in a hospital that has several floors of psych patients. Most are committed. Security is routinely called to the floors to assist staff with giving medication to patients who are refusing. The justification for us going up there and restraining them is that they will be a danger to themselves/others if they don't get the meds in their system. Of course we also go up when patients are acting out violently. In those instances we usually escort them to a "quiet room", often by force, and restrain them until they can be medicated and regain control. It's a lot of fun.

If you work in a hospital, what types of procedures do you follow on calls like this? Does the medical staff do anything to assist? It seems like the staff at my hospital likes to call for help and let us to "all the work" only to criticize our methods and report us for excessive force.

The other day we deployed some pepperfoam at a patient that was getting ready to throw something at an officer. There has been a lot of negative feedback on the incident. We lock up our guns but keep the spray when we go on a psych floor. Anyone else use personal defense items against psych people?

[Lawson]

I work in a hospital that has several floors of psych patients. Most are committed. Security is routinely called to the floors to assist staff with giving medication to patients who are refusing. The justification for us going up there and restraining them is that they will be a danger to themselves/others if they don't get the meds in their system. Of course we also go up when patients are acting out violently. In those instances we usually escort them to a "quiet room", often by force, and restrain them until they can be medicated and regain control. It's a lot of fun.

If you work in a hospital, what types of procedures do you follow on calls like this? Does the medical staff do anything to assist? It seems like the staff at my hospital likes to call for help and let us to "all the work" only to criticize our methods and report us for excessive force.

The other day we deployed some pepperfoam at a patient that was getting ready to throw something at an officer. There has been a lot of negative feedback on the incident. We lock up our guns but keep the spray when we go on a psych floor. Anyone else use personal defense items against psych people?

I work for our County's Psychiatric Evaluation and Treatment center, so all we have is Psych patients. We also respond to patients refusing meds. Our facility offers them pills and if they refuse and they have a "Compel to Comply" order from a doctor, we have to give them an injection.

We restrain them down on the floor as the nurses give the injection. From there we decide if the patient is safe to be released back onto the milieu or if they need to go to a seclusion or restraint room.

We currently do not deploy any form of weaponry. We had an attack a couple weeks back where a patient punched a County Designated Mental Health Professional (CDMHP) who was doing his eval, he got her pretty good in the eye and broke her glasses. He then punched my partner in the nose and split it open, and he punched another MHP and took him out of commission so it was just me and this patient. He was swinging punches at me trying to hit me in the face. I used the blocks and defensive techniques that I learned in the Police Academy rather than the "back off and cover your vital organs" technique that "PRO-Act" teaches.

Because of our policy in hand, I was not authorized to try to restrain this patient solo and the 2 MHPs there would/could not help me so I basically had to keep blocking and pushing this patient off until help arrived. The ProAct system basically is designed for 2-5 vs 1 person interventions and offers no 1v1 techniques.

Since this day I have told management I want better equipment and better training. We dumped the Pro-Act for a system that has 1v1 restraints and techniques, and the CEO and program director have put me in a position to research new equipment. We have acquired a padded shield and I am working on wrist restraints.

We have been told that we will NEVER be authorized to carry OC spray or a Taser.

[HospitalPatrol]

It seems like you did the right thing during that incident. You handled yourself well and survived without hurting anyone/getting hurt. That shouldn't be an excuse for remaining complacent with your current lack of training and equipment. Training is important because if you don't learn and practice these skills that we use to help someone get control your fight or flight instincts will take over and you will be fighting like a crazy person.


The OC incident that I referred to in my post was probably the first time in the history of the hospital that security sprayed a patient. The main complaint from the hospital staff is that the use of spray "seemed a little excessive". As a result there has been some serious discussion about our methods. On the one side, we've never had to use OC to take someone down before, so why all of a sudden did an officer "have to" deploy it? On the other side, isn't it better to just give someone a little sting then to allow yourself to get beat over the head with a chair? My personal feeling is that yeah pepperfoam hurts and it LOOKS brutal when you spray someone but that feeling goes away after a while, as opposed to the terrible feeling my wife will get when she hears that I am half dead and in the ER because a crazy person beat me down. Sorry, I'd rather just do what I have to do then to let that happen to me or one of my coworkers.

One of the alternatives we discussed is we could have used a floor/gym mat like the one in the seclusion room and "rushed" the patient with it like some kind of shield. If thats what the hospital wants from security, then they need to get us riot gear and not pepperfoam.

[Lawson]

It seems like you did the right thing during that incident. You handled yourself well and survived without hurting anyone/getting hurt. That shouldn't be an excuse for remaining complacent with your current lack of training and equipment. Training is important because if you don't learn and practice these skills that we use to help someone get control your fight or flight instincts will take over and you will be fighting like a crazy person.


The OC incident that I referred to in my post was probably the first time in the history of the hospital that security sprayed a patient. The main complaint from the hospital staff is that the use of spray "seemed a little excessive". As a result there has been some serious discussion about our methods. On the one side, we've never had to use OC to take someone down before, so why all of a sudden did an officer "have to" deploy it? On the other side, isn't it better to just give someone a little sting then to allow yourself to get beat over the head with a chair? My personal feeling is that yeah pepperfoam hurts and it LOOKS brutal when you spray someone but that feeling goes away after a while, as opposed to the terrible feeling my wife will get when she hears that I am half dead and in the ER because a crazy person beat me down. Sorry, I'd rather just do what I have to do then to let that happen to me or one of my coworkers.

One of the alternatives we discussed is we could have used a floor/gym mat like the one in the seclusion room and "rushed" the patient with it like some kind of shield. If thats what the hospital wants from security, then they need to get us riot gear and not pepperfoam.

Objects being thrown is one reason I opted for the shield. What we got was one of those square kicking/punching pads that is used for DT training. I intend to use it with any other staff stacked behind me if the patient is throwing stuff, once we get in close enough the pad can be used to push/pin a patient against a wall or used as a device to assist keeping them down on the ground.

The patient we had, ended up taking 5 staff members and 4 police officers to keep him down. I was on both his legs using my knee to keep his inside leg down and my hands to keep his far leg down (he was on his back.) Had we had that pad, it is bulky and firm enough to have been able to place upon the patient's chest and pin down his chest and arms with 1 or 2 people instead of 4... and on the flipside, it is soft enough as not to keep their chest from expanding to breathe.

Almost all of the staff, nurses, security, front office, etc.. is trained in the take-down and restraint techniques. It's just that some of them who are not as strong minded as those of us in security are more proned to flight than fight.

[Lawson]

It seems like you did the right thing during that incident. You handled yourself well and survived without hurting anyone/getting hurt. That shouldn't be an excuse for remaining complacent with your current lack of training and equipment. Training is important because if you don't learn and practice these skills that we use to help someone get control your fight or flight instincts will take over and you will be fighting like a crazy person.

As far as no one getting hurt, 2 people went to the Hospital, which is unfortunate but it happens. And honestly, it seemed like it was taking forever for additional staff to arrive, if the next staff member didnt arrive within 15 seconds of the time she did, I was going to turn this patient into a pretzel.

But out of the bad, a lot of good has come. We are getting new training, new equipment and changing some building features. And for once it seems like our security department is actually being viewed as professionals rather than "Those guys who fix stuff and help with patients"

[sgtnewby]

I work in a hospital that has several floors of psych patients. Most are committed. Security is routinely called to the floors to assist staff with giving medication to patients who are refusing. The justification for us going up there and restraining them is that they will be a danger to themselves/others if they don't get the meds in their system. Of course we also go up when patients are acting out violently. In those instances we usually escort them to a "quiet room", often by force, and restrain them until they can be medicated and regain control. It's a lot of fun.

If you work in a hospital, what types of procedures do you follow on calls like this? Does the medical staff do anything to assist? It seems like the staff at my hospital likes to call for help and let us to "all the work" only to criticize our methods and report us for excessive force.

The other day we deployed some pepperfoam at a patient that was getting ready to throw something at an officer. There has been a lot of negative feedback on the incident. We lock up our guns but keep the spray when we go on a psych floor. Anyone else use personal defense items against psych people?

Sounds a lot like HCMC, but we don't carry guns. We have 6 in-patient psych units. We've had similar incidents where someone was going to throw a chair and they almost got sprayed, but dropped the chair at the last minute.

[ctbgpo]

I work in a Maximum Security Hospital for Criminally Insane. As a guard/dispatcher. We are issued expandable batons, 2 cans of oc, and cuffs. The staff (MHW's) all wear ppd and will activate in case of an incident. PD responds to the incident and will intervene only after ALL CLINICAL EFFORTS have been EXHAUSTED then it becomes a police matter and the party is handled as such. The only problem is our dept has usually heirarchy sgts, msgts, lts, capt, chief. but the chief answers to the ceo of the campus and the commisioner so the rules change when the commisioner does So our use of force is subject to critique by a non-sworn suit. We had a Sgt get fired (he was rehired, after 22 months) for spraying someone.

[Investigation]

We currently do not deploy any form of weaponry. We had an attack a couple weeks back where a patient punched a County Designated Mental Health Professional (CDMHP) who was doing his eval, he got her pretty good in the eye and broke her glasses. He then punched my partner in the nose and split it open, and he punched another MHP and took him out of commission so it was just me and this patient. He was swinging punches at me trying to hit me in the face. I used the blocks and defensive techniques that I learned in the Police Academy rather than the "back off and cover your vital organs" technique that "PRO-Act" teaches.

Because of our policy in hand, I was not authorized to try to restrain this patient solo and the 2 MHPs there would/could not help me so I basically had to keep blocking and pushing this patient off until help arrived. The ProAct system basically is designed for 2-5 vs 1 person interventions and offers no 1v1 techniques.

Since this day I have told management I want better equipment and better training. We dumped the Pro-Act for a system that has 1v1 restraints and techniques, and the CEO and program director have put me in a position to research new equipment. We have acquired a padded shield and I am working on wrist restraints.

We have been told that we will NEVER be authorized to carry OC spray or a Taser.

That is insane Lawson! It sounds like the attacks we've been faced with at my current (soon to be former) job. I strongly suggest that you make a report to Washington State Labor and Industries citing an unsafe work envroinment. Perhaps they can come in and get you better equipment or change the way you operate for the better.

[Lawson]

That is insane Lawson! It sounds like the attacks we've been faced with at my current (soon to be former) job. I strongly suggest that you make a report to Washington State Labor and Industries citing an unsafe work envroinment. Perhaps they can come in and get you better equipment or change the way you operate for the better.

Well normally I would, but the administrative staff their has finally seen the light and are making moves in the right direction.

I plan to be outta there soon anyway.