Ladysmith girl was restrained eight times
before her death
June 24, 2006
EAU CLAIRE (AP) — A 7-year-old girl
who suffocated during a control hold at a northwest Wisconsin
counseling center had been similarly restrained eight other times,
according to a state agency.
Angellika Arndt, of Ladysmith, died
May 26 at Children’s Hospital & Clinics of Minnesota in Minneapolis,
a day after police were called to the Northwest Counseling and
Guidance Clinic in Rice Lake on a report that she was unresponsive.
Arndt was a patient at the clinic and
had been restrained by staff members for 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 that staff restrained Arndt
nine times for one to two hours, according to its report released
last week.
She had been put in a hold for
“gargling milk’’ a day before her death, according the report.
Besides the nine holds, the report said the girl was put in 18
“timeouts’’ within 31 days.
“There’s a lot of things that just
don’t sit right with me,’’ said Rick Pelishek, director of
Disability Rights Wisconsin’s northwest chapter office in Rice Lake.
The advocacy group is also
investigating and Pelishek said he’s talking to previous doctors and
getting records to see if Arndt really needed to be restrained.
A statement from the president of
Northwest Counseling and Guidance’s board of directors, Denison
Tucker, said he is concerned that there are “errors of fact,
incomplete context and misapplications of statute references’’ in
the state’s report.
Tucker said center staff will meet
with agency next week with more data and documents.
The agency’s investigation is
continuing, said Sandy Rowe, a state official.
After the center submits its plan of
correction within a month, Rowe said the state would visit the
center and then determine if the facility should be closed.
The agency has since ordered all
control holds stopped at the center. except in extreme emergencies.
No charges against center staff have
been filed yet, but Holmstrom said she has started to review several
police reports about Arndt’s death.
She doesn’t anticipate making a
decision on whether to file charges until at least mid-July.
The girl, whom friends and family
called “Angie,’’ was born in Milwaukee. She became a ward of the
state and was placed in the Rusk County foster home of Dan and Donna
Pavlik in January 2005.
She was diagnosed with reactive
attachment disorder, mood disorder and attention deficit with
hyperactivity disorder, according to the state’s report.
The Pavliks have declined to comment.
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