Patient Restrained by Hospital Staff Dies

A third patient has died under unusual circumstances at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk in the wake of a critical federal report issued in February that concluded the hospital sometimes failed to protect its patients.

Richard Allen Callender, 39, of Los Angeles died after an apparent scuffle with hospital staff last Sunday, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office confirmed Friday.

Callender is believed to have attacked another patient at the hospital, coroner’s spokesman David Campbell said. When staff members “restrained [Callender] to the floor, he became unresponsive. They initiated CPR and paramedics were summoned,” Campbell said, reading from a coroner investigator’s report.

An autopsy was performed Saturday, but the cause of death will not be determined until toxicology reports are done. That will probably take four to eight weeks, coroner investigator Lt. Richard Hanna said.

Catherine Bernarding, community liaison for Metropolitan, declined to comment, citing investigations by the hospital and the state Department of Health Services.

The U.S. Department of Justice has issued two reports on the mental hospital in recent years: one in July 2003, the other last February. The investigation was prompted by years of allegations against Metropolitan, which houses about 800 adults and children who have been committed or sentenced to the facility by criminal or civil courts.

The inquiry found dozens of instances of poor care, including patients who had been misdiagnosed and then given improper medicines. The report also found that from April 1, 2001, to March 31, 2002, there were 475 patient-against-patient assaults, 310 incidents in which patients hurt themselves and 304 accidental injuries.

Justice Department officials were not available for comment Saturday.

Officials from the state-run hospital have said they are working to correct any problems.

Callender had schizophrenia but was in good physical health, said family attorney Shawn Chapman Holley. She said he had been committed to Metropolitan after being deemed unfit to stand trial on numerous charges stemming from an incident last year in which cars were vandalized.

Los Angeles Superior Court records show that Callender was charged with 21 counts of vandalism in April 2003 and faced charges of assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm and making a terrorist threat.

Holley said the family still had not learned what happened to Callender at Metropolitan.

“They haven’t been told anything” by the hospital staff, “just that he was agitated, the police had to be called and he stopped breathing,” she said.

In late February, Clifton Washington, 42, hanged himself in his room at Metropolitan after wrapping a piece of clothing around his neck and tying it to a bar across a window.

In July, Julia Zaragoza Rodriguez, 52, died after swallowing two quarters at the hospital. The coroner ruled that she died of a small bowel perforation caused by repeated swallowing of foreign objects.