The police and tbi

[gwheezie]

Mr Scott's killing reminded me of a patient I had years ago. I had gotten a call that a black male was being brought into the crisis unit after having a violent psychotic episode in the community. What saved his life I think was someone decided he needed a hospital instead of jail.
Anyway they said he was tearing up a store and threatening to kill people. Before he got to me his mother called and informed me he was a war vet, had suffered a blast injury & tbi as well as ptsd. When he got to me, 6 cops bought him in, he had been tasered, he had bruises & abrasions, he was cuffed & had leg irons and they carried him in. He was unable to follow the multiple contradictory commands and was still trying to fight the police. I told them to take him out of the hall and bring him to a seclusion room and then I told them to step away from him. The cops disagreed and said he was dangerous and they wouldn't help me if he attacked me. I said fine.
The 1st thing I said was thank you for your service. I lowered my voice and told him I was a nurse, that I would put my body between him and anyone who tried to hurt him but in order to take his restraints off he had to listen to everything I told him. I told the officers to stand in the hall. He heard me order them out and saw them leave. I told him I had control of the situation but was going to let him tell me when I could remove the cuffs. The cops were pissed because it was taking too long but I told them they were in my house with my rules.
So he told me to release the restraints and I did and he cried in my arms. Later he explained he had a flashback and couldn't understand all the noise around him, he said they were speaking a language that was not English.

[tazkcmo]

1. thank you

for your service.

[Granny M]

2. I wish everyone handled these situations

as well as you did. Thank you for showing there is a better way.

[The Jungle 1]

3. Understanding

I sure wish this country would make a real effort to understand mental health.
My wife is a nurse at a senior home. She works nights with little support and is basically in charge of her unit.
They had a man go off the rails just this week. He barricaded himself in a room and was very verbally abusive. She spent hours talking this man down. The alternative is to call the police and have the man hog tied and hauled away to a hospital.
She came home drained.
I bought her flowers.
So I am the hero, right?

[uponit7771]

4. A deficit of TBI is input aphasia, not being able to process plane English fast enough... it sucks

... cause its confusing

[gwheezie]

5. It was his mother saved his life

Now that I think about it, she gave me the information he had a tbi & unlike with Mr Scott I based my intervention on that.

[mopinko]

6. cant wait for the science to catch up on this front.

there are soooooooo many people walking around w undiagnosed tbi, imho.
it can be so subtle, and until recently, we knew nothing about it.

i have seen it myself. my ex has a sister who was in a horrific car accident (on her honeymoon, he new hubs was killed.)
her personality changed in ways that made sense from the emotional tragedy of what happened to her. but there were also such subtle things that nobody could put together at the time. like suddenly she was unable to control herself w money, where she had be very responsible.
like, and this one puzzles me intellectually, after the accident, when she eventually started dating again, she only dated african american guys. never had done before, then exclusively did after.

i havent heard much about treatments, except for symptom relief like anti-anxiety meds. but i have to suspect that at some point maybe stem cell therapy will be able to actually repair these scars. i rest assured that the pentagon wants answers to this. they lose too many soldiers to this.