July 05, 2006
Patient death highlights question
about restraints
Associated Press
RICE LAKE,
Wis. - The
suffocation death of a 7-year-old patient at a northwestern
Wisconsin counseling center has highlighted the question of when to
use physical restraints on children.
Angellika Arndt died at a Minneapolis
hospital on May 26, a day after police were called to the Northwest
Counseling and Guidance Clinic in Rice Lake on a report that she was
unresponsive.
Staff members at the clinic had
restrained the Ladysmith girl because of behavioral issues, police
said.
Arndt died from complications of
chest compression, which caused lack of air from a restraint hold
she was placed in by staff members, Barron County District Attorney
Angela Holmstrom has said.
The state Department of Health and
Family Services investigated and found the staff had restrained
Arndt nine times for one to two hours.
Clinic officials say the staff obeyed
current laws and acted appropriately in restraining Arndt face down.
Denison Tucker, clinic president, has said staff members use the
particular hold only when a child is in danger of harming someone.
But Mary Beth Kelley, a former
special education teacher, said staff members should never have
placed Arndt on her stomach.
"There's been enough research out
there, enough deaths, that I'm surprised anyone would still use that
as a practice," said Kelley, now on the faculty of the special
education program at the University of Minnesota.
Anne Gearity, a clinical social
worker with the Washburn Child Guidance Center in Minneapolis,
called the restraint "total unacceptable."
"Whatever happened, they lost
control," Gearity said.
A Cornell University study found 45
child or adolescent fatalities involved physical or mechanical
restraints between 1993 and 2003.
According to a brochure from
Milwaukee-based Crisis Prevention Institute, which trains schools
and other facilities in how to deal with challenging children,
"especially dangerous positions" include face-down floor restraints.
Tucker said there is no uniform
standard on that position.
"That really is the difficulty in
this. There's quite a range of opinion," Tucker said.
Wisconsin law requires staff members
at treatments centers not to restrain patients "except for emergency
situations" or as part of a treatment program.
Charlie Kyte, executive director of
Minnesota Association of School Administrators, said children with
behavioral problems are a challenge to staff.
"I'd have a hard, hard time imagining
that any adults were restraining this child for that amount of time
unless the child was really out of control," he said. "My guess is
they were doing their best to calm this child when this tragedy
happened."
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