Behavioral Health

Shooting at University of Cincinnati Medical Center Ends in Suicide

Posted on January 22, 2018 10:04 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

“I thought he was going to kill everyone”, said the witness taking her child to Cincinnati Children’s
Hospital and Medical Center, before a 20-year-old shot and killed himself after shooting a University of
Cinncinnati Health security guard inside the UC psychiatric emergency services facility.

The man the witness saw was Isaiah Currie, 20, who eventually shot himself after shooting a UC Health security
guard inside the psychiatric emergency services facility on Burnet Avenue.

“He was focused. It was, ‘I’m here to do what I need to do and that’s it,'” she said. “I see him do this and
then drop (the gun) down and then I see the concrete come up, where the bullet had hit the concrete.
I thought he was on his way into the facility and I thought, ‘Oh, my god, he is going to kill everybody.'”

At this point, the witness called 911 to report the suspect. Authorities didn’t know where or how Currie
obtained the two handguns he carried into the lobby Wednesday at UC Medical Center’s Emergency Psychiatric
Services. Cincinnati Police Eliot Isaac said at news conference Thursday that one of the guns had been
reported stolen in Kentucky.

Currie, 20, who had a history of mental illness, shot the security officer twice in the torso, before turning the gun on himself. The officer was reported to be seriously injured.

LESSONS LEARNED:

1. Even when the witness saw the shooter advancing on the hospital, and called 911 – IT WAS ALREADY TOO LATE! Police could not get there in time to prevent the shooting. For an Emergency Psychiatric
facility, use of metal detectors is a MUST HAVE.

THANKS FOR READING THE RISKAlert Report

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#ActiveShooter #RISKAlerts #riskandsecurityllc

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or www.caroline-hamilton.com

HOSPITAL PATIENT WITH TWO KNIVES LEAVES TREATMENT ROOM ON THE 14TH FLOOR OF BARNES JEWISH HOSPITAL IN ST. LOUIS, AND WAS SHOT AND KILLED BY TWO SECURITY OFFICERS.

Posted on January 18, 2018 3:13 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

RISKAlert Report Updated: Jan. 15, 2018

A 46-year old patient, identified as Andrew Merryman, was in a hospital treatment room with his wife on the 14^th floor of the Center for Advanced Medicine at 10 a.m. Friday morning.

According to St. Louis Police Lt. Col. Rochelle D. Jones, Merryman pushed his way out of the om and pulled out two pocket knives, she said. As Merryman came down the hall, Jones called security and two officers responded. Two officers arrived and ordered Merryman to drop the knives. He refused, so both officers fired their guns, killing him. He died at the scene.

Police commented that Mr. Merryman was suicidal and had been treated for depression. Lt. Col. Jones said the guards were being questioned by police as part of the investigation.

Kara Price Shannon, a spokeswoman for Barnes-Jewish Hospital, said police are handling the investigation and directed all questions to them. “There is no threat to the public or our patients,” she told the Post-Dispatch shortly after the shooting.

LESSONS LEARNED:

All incoming patients in emotional distress, should be wanded with a metal detector as
a condition of treatment. Weapons can be returned as the patient leaves the hospital.

2. A recent study by Johns Hopkins, discovered that most hospital shootings take
place in the Emergency Room (29%), and only 19% in a patient room.

THANKS FOR READING THE RISKAlert Report

For more information and more great content:
www.riskandsecurityllc.com or www.caroline-hamilton.com

#activeshooterhospital #hospitalsecurity #patientshot

RISKAlert November, 2014 Updated Incident Planning for Healthcare Facilities

Posted on December 16, 2014 6:34 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

Incorporating Active Shooter Incident Planning into Health Care Facility Emergency Operations Plans

National preparedness efforts, including planning, are based on U.S. Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 8: Preparedness, which was signed by the President in March 2011. This updated directive represents an “evolution” in understanding of national preparedness based on lessons learned from rom natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy, terrorist acts like the Boston Bombing and active shooter and other violent incidents.

Preparedness is centered in five areas: Prevention, Protection, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery. These concepts are applied to Health Care Facility (HCFs) Planning for active shooters and other violent incidents.

Emergency Operations Plans for Health Care Facilities (EOPs) should be living documents that are routinely reviewed and consider all types of hazards, including the possibility of an active shooter or terrorist incident. As law enforcement continues to draw lessons learned from actual emergencies, HCFs should incorporate those lessons learned into existing emergency plans or in newly created EOPs.

It advises a whole community approach that includes staff, patients, and visitors as well as individuals with access and functional needs. Examples of these populations include children, older adults, pregnant women, individuals with disabilities, etc.

The key concepts include not only familiar concepts like “Run-Hide-Fight” but also concepts on addressing a wider range of risks (threats), how to do drills, improvement of situational awareness activities, expanding the definitions of risks, how to do Psychological First Aid (PFA), and how to integrate these with HIPAA guidelines and Rules and the importance and role of Security in Emergency Operations Planning (EOPs).

Lesson Learned : Don’t Wait to Respond!

A 2005 investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology into the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, found that people close to the floors impacted waited longer to start evacuating than those on unaffected floors. Similarly, during the Virginia Tech shooting, individuals on campus responded to the shooting with varying degrees of urgency. (ref: Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster: Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communications.)

Frequent Security Situational Awareness Training, and Active Shooter –
Disaster Drills can prevent this “frozen” phenomena and save lives in
a violent incident , a terrorist attack, or a disaster scenario.

RISKAlerts are publications of Risk & Security LLC

Former Nurse Commits Suicide in Hospital Bathroom at Valley View Hospital

Posted on August 7, 2014 12:45 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

RISKALERT INCIDENT REPORT # 574 – Suicide in the Hospital Bathroom

August 6, 2014

Former Nurse Commits Suicide, Fires A Single Shot to the Head, Locked in a Public Restroom at Valley View Hospital, Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

A hospital staff member reported Eric Knurr dead in a bathroom stall a round 11:30 a.m. Monday, morning, August 4, after maintenance had to be called to unlock the door to the men’s restroom off the emergency department. The former male nurse had been formally admonished by state regulators for brushing a patient’s teeth until they bled, and also slapping the patient, who was in restraints at the time of the incident in 2005. He had applied for a job at Valley View Hospital in 2012, but was not hired. In similar incidents:

In January, 2014, a man locked himself in the hospital bathroom at Cherokee Medical Center in Iowa, and committed suicide.
In August, 2013, 62-year-old man committed suicide in a public bathroom at the Veterans Affairs hospital campus at Fort Harrison, Montana, after locking the bathroom door and killing himself with a single shot.
In August, 2012, a similar incident happened at an Oklahoma hospital when a Oklahoma State University employee committed suicide in a public restroom off the emergency room.

LESSONS LEARNED

(1.) Hospital staff should IMMEDIATELY report any locked bathroom door in a public restroom. In several of the incidents, housekeeping “didn’t want to bother security” when they found the bathroom door locked, so they waited another two hours before reporting the problem, and by then it was too late.

(2.) Not having any form of metal detection allows people to bring guns into hospitals, lock themselves in bathroom, and commit suicide. Metal detectors or wand detectors can prevent a tragedy.

CHECK OUT: In December, 2010, The Joint Commission Issued a Sentinel Event Alert on Suicide Risk Outside Psych Units in Hospitals, including medical units, surgical units, and emergency departments. (http://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/18/SEA_46.pdf).

“It is noteworthy that many patients who kill themselves in general hospital inpatient units do not have a psychiatric history or a history of suicide attempt – they are “unknown at risk” for suicide. Compared to the psychiatric hospital and unit, the general hospital setting also presents more access to items that can be used to attempt suicide – items that are either already in or may be brought into the facility – and more opportunities for the patient to be alone to attempt or re-attempt suicide.

“This Alert presents strategies that can be used and suggested actions that can be taken by general hospitals to help better prepare their staffs and their facilities for suicidal patients and to care for both their physical and mental needs. Suicide has ranked in the top five most frequently reported events to The Joint Commission since 1995. The Sentinel Event Database includes 827 reports of inpatient suicides. Of these events, 14.25 percent occurred in the non-behavioral health units of general hospitals (e.g., medical or surgical units, ICU, oncology, telemetry), 8.02 percent occurred in the emergency department of general hospitals and 2.45 percent occurred in other non-psychiatric settings.”

Stay Alert and Encourage Hospital Employee Awareness!

RISKAlert® is a publication of Risk & Security LLC at www.riskandsecurity.com

Aventura Hospital Patient Strangled in his Room on July 1st,, 2014

Posted on July 2, 2014 4:09 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

RiskAlert INCIDENT REPORT 565 –

Patient Strangled in Aventura Hospital, Florida

32-year old Behavioral Health Patient found Strangled to Death
in his Hospital Room

32-year old Alex Paloumbis diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia at a
young age, had been in the hospital for two weeks. He was on the fourth-floor psychiatric
ward when he was attacked by the patient in the next bed.

The other patient in the room, identified by police as Alexander T. Jackson, 31, was
charged with first-degree murder and remained in Miami-Dade County Jail on Monday
with no bond. Jackson, who is homeless, was admitted to the hospital around 10 a.m
Thursday, the day of the murder, which occurred about 3 p.m. the same day. He was
put in the same room with Rios, according to the arrest report.

LESSONS LEARNED:

Behavioral health patients require extra controls including
live, continual camera monitoring, use of appropriate
medication and possible use of restraints.

Patients may pose a danger to others, as they did in this tragedy,
and should be under continuous supervision.

Rios was last seen alive at about 2:45 p.m. Thursday. At 3:36., a hospital
housekeeper found him face down on the floor. “The defendant admitted
to killing the victim by strangling him with his hands and a bedsheet,”
according to the report.

While administrators declined to comment on the security procedures at the
hospital, IAHSS (the International Association for Healthcare Security & Safety)
President Marilyn Hollier said psychiatric floors generally have lock-down
procedures, metal detectors, seclusion rooms and cameras at the access
points. It is not known whether any of these security controls existed at the
hospital. Hollier also stressed that security officers need specialized
training to deal with behavioral health patients.

Aventura Hospital, located near I-95 north of Miami, Florida, has a large
behavioral health unit with 46 beds. The victim’s mother said her son was
never violent. “He never, never, never raised his voice,” Paloumbis said.
The mother was summoned to the hospital Thursday. She was told come
quickly and then was ushered into a room where police officers and detectives
were waiting. Though she had limited English skills, she understood that
her son was dead and initially thought that he may have died from a heart attack
or other natural causes.

Stay Situationally Aware and Continuously Monitor Behavioral Health Patients!

RISKAlert® is a publication of Risk & Security LLC at www.riskandsecurity.com

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