Citizens Commission on Human Rights

Restaint Deaths and Abuse

 Psychiatrists persist in inflicting psychosurgery and electroshock on patients even though no valid medical or scientific justification exists for these practices. After more than 60 years, psychiatrists can neither explain how they are supposed to work nor justify their extensive damage.

When Jennifer Martin’s 70-year-old mother experienced headaches and nausea and stopped eating and talking, a psychiatrist claimed she was in shock from recent deaths in her family and gave her ECT. Less than 24 hours later she was dead. An autopsy revealed that the problem was not depression, but a brain stem complication. “Shock treatment killed her,” Ms. Martin said.

A grieving husband says a psychiatrist recommended electroshock because it would release a chemical in the brain that would make his wife, Dorothy, feel better. Aware of her earlier heart attacks, he administered 38 electroshocks. The last one killed her.

In 2001, the New Zealand government was forced to formally apologize and pay $6.5 million to 95 former patients of the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Unit for torture and abuse they suffered at the directions of psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks in the 1970s. ECT had been applied to victims’ legs, arms and genitals without anesthetic.

At 28, Gwen Whitty was a wife and mother of two with another on the way. When she developed difficulty breathing, psychiatrist Harry Bailey recommended “deep sleep therapy” for a “rest” —which turned out to involve heavy doses of barbiturates and sedatives while shackled naked to a bed, kept unconscious for two to three weeks, and given repeated electroshock. Ten years later, a doctor discovered two jagged steel plates in her head, attached to the bone by Bailey to cover holes in her skull.

In 1998, 16-year-old Tristan Sovern was held facedown by at least two mental health assistants with his arms crossed under his body. When he screamed, “You’re choking me...I can’t breathe,” staff at the U.S. psychiatric facility shoved a large towel over his mouth and tied a bed sheet around his head. Tristan died of asphyxiation.

In 1998, psychiatric staff forced 13-year-old Stephanie Jobin of Canada to lie face down on the floor and placed a beanbag chair on top of her. A female staff member sat on the chair to pin her down while another staff member held her feet, after she had already been dosed with five different psychiatric drugs. After 20 minutes of struggling, Stephanie stopped breathing and later died. Her death was ruled an accident.

The night before 15-year-old Edith Campos was sent to Desert Hills psychiatric hospital in Tucson, Arizona, she made colorful computer drawings for her family. If her mother missed her, all she needed to do was look at the picture and think of her daughter and that she would soon be home. Two weeks later, Edith came home in a coffin. During the time she was hospitalized, her parents were not allowed to speak to her. On February 4, 1998, Edith apparently died of asphyxiation, her chest compressed when she was held to the ground for at least 10 minutes after reportedly raising her fist during a confrontation with staff members.

On August 18, 1997, 16-year-old Roshelle Clayborne died during restraint at a psychiatric facility in San Antonio, Texas. Roshelle was slammed face down on the floor, her arms yanked across her chest, her wrists gripped from behind by a mental health aide. “I can’t breathe,” she gasped. Her last words were ignored. A syringe delivered 50 milligrams of Thorazine into her body and with eight staffers watching, Roshelle became suddenly still. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth as she lost control of her bodily functions. Her limp body was rolled into a blanket and dumped in an 8-by 10-foot room. There she lay in her own waste and vomit for five minutes before anyone noticed she hadn’t moved. By the time a registered nurse arrived and began CPR, it was too late. Roshelle never revived.

In Denmark in 2002, a patient who was punished by being put into restraints was compensated in a damages suit against the treating psychiatrist. This was the first time ever that compensation was awarded to a patient harmed by the restraint procedure.

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