When the Hospital Fires the Bullet
More and more hospital guards across the country carry weapons. For Alan Pean, seeking help for mental distress, that resulted in a gunshot to the chest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/hospital-guns-mental-health.html?_r=0
When doctors and nurses arrived at Room 834 just after 11 a.m., a college student admitted to the hospital hours earlier lay motionless on the floor, breathing shallowly, a sheet draped over his body. A Houston police officer with a cut on his head was being helped onto a stretcher, while another hovered over the student.
Blood smeared the floor and walls. “What happened?” asked Dr. Daniel Arango, a surgical resident at the hospital, St. Joseph Medical Center.
The student, 26-year-old Alan Pean, had come to the hospital for treatment of possible bipolar disorder, accidentally striking several cars while pulling into the parking lot. Kept overnight for monitoring of minor injuries, he never saw a psychiatrist and became increasingly delusional. He sang and danced naked in his room, occasionally drifting into the hall. When two nurses coaxed him into a gown, he refused to have it fastened. Following protocol, a nurse summoned security, even though he was not aggressive or threatening.
Soon, from inside the room, there was shouting, sounds of a scuffle and a loud pop. During an altercation, two off-duty Houston police officers, moonlighting as security guards, had shocked Mr. Pean with a Taser, fired a bullet into his chest, then handcuffed him.
“I thought of the hospital as a beacon, a safe haven,” said Mr. Pean, who survived the wound just millimeters from his heart last Aug. 27. “I can’t quite believe that I ended up shot.”