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Sakena Dorsey, 18
Died: June 10, 1997
Cause: Asphyxiation
Patient at: Foundations Behavorial Health Center, Bucks County, Pa.
Few took notice when Robert Rollins, a
12-year-old from New Haven, died in April 1997 during a restraint at
a Massachusetts school for children with behavioral problems.
In the 11 months that followed, at least 22
other patients died during or shortly after a restraint in
psychiatric and mental retardation facilities nationwide.
Together, the cases illustrate why restraint
use can be deadly. The reasons -- poor training, inadequate
standards, inferior emergency response, shoddy investigation -- show
up time and again.
But the record has never been clearly collected
and examined.
So on March 22, 1998, an 11-year-old Bridgeport
boy named Andrew McClain died in a restraint hold in a Portland
psychiatric hospital -- under very nearly the same circumstances as
those in which Robert Rollins died.
Sakena was one of the people known to have died
in the 11-month period and here is her stories:
 Dorsey
stopped breathing while she was being physically restrained, face
down.
No criminal charges were filed. Dorsey had a history of asthma and
problems
with swollen tonsils that hindered her breathing.
Click on the link below to read about the
others.
http://www.pcma.com/crisis_intervention_news/deadly_restraint/faces.stm |
