Hospital security officer assaulted after stopping fleeing teen in Chillicothe Ohio
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio February 9 2024— A security officer at Adena Regional Medical Center was injured Monday evening after attempting to restrain a juvenile who attempted to leave the facility, according to the Ross County Sheriff’s Office.
Incident details from the sheriff’s office:
A teenager entered the ER for suicidal ideation, accompanied by a parent and boyfriend.
The boyfriend allegedly persuaded the teen to leave the ER, leading to intervention by security and nursing staff.
A physical altercation ensued outside the ER between the boyfriend, security personnel, and the teen’s father.
The security officer reportedly sustained back and neck injuries during the struggle.
Investigation and charges:
Charges of assault are pending against two individuals involved in the altercation, said the sheriff’s office.
The names of those involved and further details are not being released due to the ongoing investigation.
The family reached out to the Guardian and released a statement sharing their side of the story.
“My child had a funeral to go to, so my son, his girlfriend, my daughter, and her boyfriend rode up to Columbus together, followed by my husband and me. After the funeral, we went back to the cars. My daughter was going to ride back with me.
We are on our way home when my daughter is upset and started to have a panic attack. So my husband got worried, and he told her he is going to stop at Adena hospital emergency. So we did. My husband goes in to ask a nurse if they could just check her out, and they say yeah. Well, my daughter and her boyfriend called his grandma to come pick them up because my daughter didn’t want to see a doctor. She had calmed down when my husband went in there, but she and her boyfriend got out of my car and started walking off of hospital grounds.
So the security guard asked my husband while he was asking the nurse to check our daughter out, said to my husband, “Is that your daughter walking down the road?” My husband looked and said yes. The security guard yelled some kind of code over the phone, and they all took off running towards my daughter and her boyfriend. So my husband comes out and says, “What are they doing?” I said she wanted to go with her boyfriend’s grandma anyway.
My husband and I got back in the car and went down on the road. When we get there, we see a 300-pound security guard tackle a 120-pound 17-year-old boy, face planting him into the ground. My husband said, “That’s not right,” and jumped out of the car and pulled the security guard off her boyfriend. Then the security guard and a male nurse jumped on my husband and started to pin him on the ground of hospital property.
So everything calmed down after that. So my daughter went into the hospital with some nurses so they could check her out. They let my husband and me wait in a waiting room. We didn’t know they were making her strip naked in front of them. My daughter asked them if I could come back with her. She’s a minor, and they said no. And then they told my daughter if she doesn’t strip, they would get the security guards that are men to strip her. So she goes ahead and strips. Then they come get me and my husband to go into the room with her.
Anyway, the hospital took away all our rights as parents and told us that they can keep her and we can’t do anything about it. This all happened around 5:30 pm. The doctor that saw her when we first went in told us he didn’t see any reason to keep her there. But he said the other doctor that’s coming on the next shift will check on her too. The other doctor said he wanted to transfer her to Sun Behavior in Columbus, and they said they have the right without our permission to do what they wanted with and we couldn’t do anything about it. They made us leave.
They said if we didn’t leave, the sheriff would be called. So we went home at midnight, and the hospital called and told us to call the place where they are taking her. So we did, and I talked to the nurse manager in the intake at that place and told her everything that happened. She said Adena has no rights to make decisions on our daughter’s health without our consent. She told us to go back and pick our daughter up. She said they are telling us lies.
So we went back up at 1:00 am and told them that. And the security guard went back to tell the doctor. He comes back and says the doctor has more rights than we do. I told him the doctor has no custody of our child. Finally, after another 30 minutes goes by, the doctor comes out and said he has the right to do what he wants to her. But he said he will go ahead and release her back to us. So finally, 3 o’clock this morning, we got her home.
We just want some kind of help so this doesn’t happen to other patients. I know we all are traumatized about this, especially my daughter.”