Pubdate: Fri, 5 Jun 2009
Source: Prince George Citizen (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 Prince George Citizen
Contact:  http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/350
Author: Frank Peebles
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/taser

MEDICAL EXPERT DELVES INTO HOW AGITATED DELIRIUM CONTRIBUTED TO 
IN-CUSTODY DEATHS

People have been going berserk in the streets then mysteriously die
soon after, usually in the hands of police.

That is not to say, said a medical doctor and leading scientific
researcher, that it was because of the police.

Dr. Christine Hall is an emergency room doctor in Victoria at Royal
Jubilee and Victoria General hospitals. She is also a researcher
funded by the Canadian Police Research Centre (a division of the
Department of National Defense) and the National Institute of Justice
in the U.S. She is delving into the history of what has lately been
termed agitated delirium or excited delirium. Specifically, she is
looking at what happened when people died while exhibiting the traits
of the condition. She was in Prince George recently to teach police
about these aggressive forms of delirium because it is often the
officers on the street who wind up facing these wild
individuals.

All too often, including the 2003 high profile Prince George case of
Clay Willey, someone in the throes of agitated delirium are so
aggressive that it attracts the attention of the police who sometimes
have to do extreme things to take the subject into custody. In Wiley's
case it took multiple officers to wrestle him to the ground, he was
tasered, he was hog-tied and he was taken to RCMP cells. He was soon
transported to hospital and died there the next day. A pathologist
testified at the coroner's inquest that all physical factors in
subduing Willey were irrelevant; what killed him was an extreme
reaction to a dose of cocaine.

Hall's research so far indicates strongly, she told The Citizen, that
the pathologist in the Willey case was correct and similar cases are
common, dating back decades.

"We in the medical community are now trying to teach police officers
that there are things they need to watch for," she said. "We want them
to recognize that when they are in that state, don't assume the person
is just high on cocaine. They have to bring them to the hospital for
care, not a jail cell."

Her research shows that 80 per cent of agitated delirium fatalities
occur at the scene of police intervention, or in a close time frame,
meaning emergency medical intervention is critical.

However, "these are not people just having a hissy fit," Hall said,
which poses all sorts of associated problems. These subjects may even
have moments of clarity, but generally their behaviour is extreme,
violent, irrational and many exhibit (as did Willey) superhuman strength.

"Just bring them to the hospital, right? Simple," said Hall. "How do
you get a person behaving like that to the hospital doors in the first
place? And then, we (medical staff) do not really like it when someone
in that state is dropped off in our front room. If your grandma is
sitting in the waiting room, you probably wouldn't want this kind of
person dropped in her lap. There have to be pre-established systems
for handling these situations."

There is nothing that can be done that makes such scenarios neat and
tasteful for the public, however, she stressed. The subjects are
likely going to be shocking to anyone who sees them in action, the
process of restraining them will likely be violent since Hollywood
solutions like tranquilizers cannot be used in such situations for a
number of reasons.

"Police restrain people. That is their job," she said. "Paramedics are
not trained to wrestle these people to the ground."

In decades of these incidents occurring and being documented, there is
no evidence to suggest any of these deaths were caused or hastened by
any restraint methods used by either police or civilians. Through the
years pepper spray was introduced, tasers were introduced, different
restraint methods used, but so far no correlation has been established
to any of these.

What does seem to correlate is the use of drugs, especially cocaine.
The condition was first studied in deliberate fashion by two
pathologists in the United States in the early 1980s and the
triggering circumstance was a concerning number of these fatalities in
the Miami area. At that time, not coincidentally according to Hall,
Miami was the North American headquarters for the cocaine importation
industry.

Hall found it concerning that some in society, even in the medical
field, still don't recognize agitated delirium as a factual condition.
It is not a title that stands by itself, she said, but fits under
other proper diagnoses. "Stomach ache" is also not a billable
diagnosis a doctor can make, she said, but it is still a recognized
condition that leads the doctor to the ultimate cause of pain or
death. So to is agitated or excited delirium, and that, she said, has
been well established by the global medical community for many years.

"OK. So if you're so sure it doesn't exist, you're OK with police just
grabbing someone thrashing about and throw them into a cell, not
taking them to medical attention. Is that really what you want?," she
asked.

It is time the rest of society understood this behaviour as a medical
situation, she said, especially those who encounter the worst case
scenarios: the police. Likewise, she said, the police were often the
first to bring this condition to the attention of doctors, and the
medical community in general has to respond to what the police are
experiencing in the field.

"It is just easier for a lot of people to blame the police," she said,
referring to the times people die in their care. "We have to examine
the facts behind every death and certainly there should not be an
assumption by anyone that the last person to touch this individual
caused this individual to die." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake