Inclusion Daily Express -- State Failed Girl That Died From Restraint, And May Still Fail Others, Says Watchdog

Inclusion Daily Express Logo

International Disability Rights News Service
Click here for today's headlines & home page

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

State Failed Girl That Died From Restraint, And May Still Fail Others, Says Watchdog
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
December 8, 2008

RICE LAKE, WISCONSIN--Two and a half years after 7-year-old Angellika "Angie" Arndt's prone restraint death, the state still has not done enough to prevent similar tragedies, according to a report released by Disability Rights Wisconsin.

Angie, who had diagnoses of reactive attachment disorder, mood disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, died on May 26, 2006, one day after being restrained facedown for 30 minutes in a "control hold" at the Rice Lake Day Treatment Center.

A medical examiner later ruled Angie's death a homicide due to "complications from chest compression asphyxiation".

Documents showed that during the 23 days she was at the program, staff had restrained Angellika on her stomach nine times for such things as standing up fast, turning quickly in an aggressive manner, throwing herself back in her chair, refusing to move, refusing to sit as told, putting her hands down the front of her pants, and kicking her shoe off her foot and across the room. Two of those times she was restrained for more than an hour and a half.

On the day of her fatal restraint, she was reportedly restrained as a punishment for gargling milk.

Northwest Guidance and Counseling Clinic Inc. which operated the day program, later closed it after the state imposed a $100,000 fine -- the maximum punishment allowed for negligent abuse.

Former staff member Brad Ridout was sentenced to 60 days in jail after facing a possible maximum sentence of nine months on a misdemeanor charge of negligent abuse.

Ridout had laid across Angie's upper body for the 30 minutes until she stopped struggling. That's when Ridout and the other staffer realized that her lips were blue and she had stopped breathing.

In a 75-page report about the incident and the use of restraints and seclusion, Disability Rights Wisconsin said the state not only failed Angie, but that the response by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services "has been neither sufficient nor timely, nor with enough sense of urgency or importance to adequately safeguard against this type of death happening again to another Wisconsin child."

DRW said that the state has not yet banned the use of all restraints that restrict the person's breathing -- such as the prone restraint. The protection and advocacy system also said it hopes lawmakers will clarify when restraints can and cannot be used on children with mental health issues.

"DRW believes that the policies and conditions remain sufficiently unchanged so as to allow such lethal restraint practices to continue in this state, thus making it potentially only a matter of time until there is another tragedy."

Related:
"Restraints still used after girl's death" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/35780274.html
"Report: A Tragic Result of a Failure to Act" (Disability Rights Wisconsin)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/2008/red/1208b.htm
"Angellika Arndt, 7, Died After Ninth Restraint At Clinic" (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/restraints/wi/angellika.htm

Click here for top of this page

Purchase this story for your website or newsletter . . .

Here's what subscribers say about Inclusion Daily Express. . .

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Get your news here!