A "combative" hospital patient in Houston has been shot during a fight with two off-duty police officers who were hurt while struggling to subdue him, police said.

An official with St. Joseph Medical Center says the 26-year-old male patient was in critical condition after being shot late Thursday morning.

Annette Garber says the "very aggressive" patient refused to obey staffers, who then summoned help to the medical floor.

Both officers, working security at the hospital, tried to subdue the patient before one opened fire. Garber declined to release further details on the wounded patient or why he was originally hospitalized.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/houston-police-off-duty-cop-shoots-combative-patient-at-hospital/

This patient for example could of been going through alcohol withdrawal... Unbeknownst to medical staff of the alcohol history... Day 3 it really kicks in....many other rational health conditions can escalate into combative behavior... Shooting the patient with a bullet verses ativan/ haldol/ cogentin IM is not an acceptable choice. .

Medical staff can handle this without gunfire...Always have in the past. This is shameful.

because there was a delay in getting some Ativan on board. Yes, it was a drug overdose, IIRC, and they saved this person's life. The dr lost his cool when the patient bit him. I can't say I would have reacted differently after being bitten.

No reason to shoot unless the patient is armed and dangerous.

Some days are just crummy and things happen... Health care workers are human. This shooting is murder.

who are in insulin shock sometimes get combative, too? Hell, he's in the right place to get help - shooting people in a hospital seems counter-intuitive to me!

they get sleepy. They got WAY better stuff at the hospital.

They seem to open fire in hospitals more often than they do in veterinary clinics. No treats for that.

Security gets called to help with combative patients all the time.

This is a first.

All I can think is, maybe he was strangling a nurse or tech and the security guards couldn't pull him off.

Withholding judgment.

so far, it appears they over-reacted. We'll have to wait to get the whole story.

That is very un-DU. You must new new here.

I assumed I was about to hear a diatribe about what an awful person I am

for not getting my noose and tree ready as faster.

God damn it! Take a pill officers. The gun is only one of the tools on your belt. You also should have another great tool for these situations. That tool lives in the space between your ears. Dust that fucker off once in a while. You might be surprised at what you can do with it.

and wound up in the emergency room. "Combative" is putting it mildly. This 76 year old woman, who weights maybe 120 lbs, took four nurses to restrain her. The next day she was fine. I couldn't help thinking what if it had been me-not a huge guy, but bigger than average. I don't think anybody in the ER that night would have been able to controle me. It would have ended up a police situation, and I might be dead. And maybe it would have been justified, I don't know. Just a bad situation all the way around.

and they become terrifying during an episode. These women are normally sweet LOLs that couldn't hurt a fly.

I knew a 5'2" 140lb. 72 year old who was pushing staff, trying to get into other patients' beds, and called the police thinking she was being held hostage. She didn't know who she was or where she was completely disoriented. Took a long night and half a day of sleep to get her over it. And none of it was due to medication.

I've also read that older women with UTIs are more prone to develop hospital psychosis.

the mildest registering of bacteria in a sample, from what I've read, seems to be enough to hike the odds of hospital psychosis developing after a couple of days.

I'm 71 years old, retired Army infantry officer, and an Advanced Life Support EMT with a volunteer rescue squad in rural Virginia. At least once a month we have a combative patient in the back of our ambulance. If you think a patient wanting to fight everyone in sight is a problem in an ER with security guards and lots of help around, try dealing with a raving, shrieking, fighting 24-yr-old in the back of a 14-ft X 8-ft ambulance with me and a tiny female EMT while the driver does 85 on a winding road with no one buckled in.

More than once I have thrown a choke hold on a patient, cut off his air until he passes out, then we apply restraints, pop open the drug box and hit him with Haldol. Except for the one time the tiny little female EMT hit a guy in the head with a D-size oxygen bottle.

And if the patient has OD'd and is passed out, you can't relax. We tie 'em down, administer Narcan (Naloxone) either IM or nasal spray then watch for the eyes to open -- when the eyes open, get ready for a fight.

And just think -- we are volunteers, not getting paid for this.

Then there's always the case where we run a gunshot or stab victim only to find the victim's posse and the assailant's posse squared off in the front yard.

get paid.

Still, it was one of those times when I really liked training and learning, applying that to the work.

you must have lots of stories!

In a hospital most patients are old enough to be easily confused (and a fair number of the young ones have drug/etoh problems) so, yeah, fun times.

It's the nurses and techs - nearly all female - who stand on the front lines. They have to get close, start IV's, give meds, deal with combative people for twelve hrs straight, and try not to get punched. Its their job to keep the 6 foot 4 guy from tearing out his tubes and IVs and climbing out of bed to get back to his army unit or long-dead mother or whatever he's imagining. Of course, if he does manage to get up and he falls - whacks his head, breaks his hip - the nursing staff gets the blame, the family is outraged, and Medicare won't reimburse the hospital because it was a "preventable event."

Floor nurses are tough, smart and tireless.

Hospital security people exist for a reason.

And they are armed for a reason. The ones I used to know knew when to put one in the leg or chest or to just wait it out. Although they were off-duty deputies or police, I think they were better trained than the average street officer or maybe the hospitals only used the better officers.

has been hit on the head with a telephone, has been slapped by an irate family member, and has been slammed into a wall by a teenager pushing an empty stretcher and had to take leave to recover.

That's just what I can think of off the top of my head!

-- I'm hospital staff, and she's amazing.

She also has some hilarious stories to tell, and since we live in different states, her stories - sans names - just aren't going to break any HIPPPA laws. Sometimes, my side hurts she makes me laugh so much.

She's convinced that humor is the key to longevity in the nursing field.

- they invited me in to share in a potluck goodbye for a clerk who'd been promoted.

I got to hear two of the experienced nurses battling each other - with a mixture of love, professional respect, and blunt aggression - over some issue regarding a patient and what was best for him.

It was fun to see them with their hair down. Out on the floor, they're busy getting the job done. Behind closed doors, the humor and loyalty and fierce caring shine through.

You're too nice.

to subdue the patient??
Every description of tasering that I've read has indicated that it is extremely effective, and the article indicates the officers used it.
Just wondering why it had no effect in this case.

Which doubles my surprise that the officers felt they needed firearms.

For the taser to be effective, both barbs have to get stuck in to the skin and stay stuck in long enough for the operator to activate it. If this doesn't happen, the taser is not effective.

I will speculate and say the patient was moving erratically and/or rapidly or that one of the barbs got stuck in the clothing and did not reach the skin.

I've heard stories that in colder weather tasers are not effective on people wearing leather jackets or lots of layers of clothing.

and I tend to think the clothing would be light due to heat, so leather jackets and cold weather were probably not a factor.
As for erratic movement-- it was two officers against one patient, and gunfire was all they could do??
Again, just wondering....

So they tried physically restraining the patient, which didn't work, they tried the taser, which didn't work, so they tried the less lethal means first and apparently only resorted to a firearm after the previous methods failed.

I've had the basics of law enforcement training via the US Army military police school and it is not easy to restrain a person who is not allowed to hit you or otherwise to do something likely to harm other recruits.

Now try and restrain a person who is perfectly willing to hurt you or themselves or anyone else who gets in the way and may very well be mentally ill, under the influence of drugs or alcohol and who could be bigger or stronger or faster or younger then you.

Details remain sparse, but based on the very limited information, it seems the two officers acted reasonably.

If the patient had a weapon, and posed a threat to others, then I agree with you that the officers acted reasonably. I will wait to learn more details.

And I appreciate your posts, which add a perspective different from mine.

an object of torture many police use instead of their kicks and punches.

If the cop had no gun, the guy would not have been shot and at worse someone else might have a fat lip.

Guns are a sickness of a sick society.

Their friends and enemies come to pay their respects.

Think.

nt