Death due to Restraint at Star Ranch RTC- Ingram, Tx

[Deborah]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/ ... 14ef5.html
Autopsy shows boy, 12, at Kerr center suffocated

Web Posted: 12/08/2005 12:00 AM CST

Zeke MacCormack
Express-News Staff Writer

Autopsy findings released Wednesday attribute the weekend death of a Kerrville boy to suffocation while being restrained at Star Ranch, a
residential treatment center in Ingram.

An unidentified ranch staffer reportedly placed Christening "Mikie" Garcia, 12, in "a basket hold" as the emotionally disturbed youngster tried to bang his own head on the pavement.

Arms across his chest and hands held from behind by the staffer, Garcia stopped breathing Sunday evening and couldn't be revived, officials said.

Kerr County Justice of the Peace Bill Ragsdale is awaiting the results of toxicology tests on the boy, and investigations by state and local
authorities, before ruling on the manner of death.

The boy's parents could not be reached for comment.

A funeral service for him will be held at 9:30 a.m. Friday at Kerrville Funeral Home at 1121 Junction Highway.

Court records show Garcia had a history of banging his head. In January 2000, the state removed him and two other siblings from a household described as being in crisis.

At the time, the children's mother, Doris Garcia, now 40, moved out to escape what she called years of physical abuse by the father of her five kids, Innocencio Garcia, now 61.

Police had repeatedly responded to the Garcia home on complaints of domestic violence and runaway children, records show.

A Kerrville police officer, answering an assault complaint there on Dec. 13, 1999, said: "Violence is part of their everyday existence."

Doris and Innocencio Garcia relinquished their parental rights in 2004, records show.

An Oct. 18 report on the three Garcia children still in state custody states "Mikie" was placed at Star Ranch in August after having "serious behavior problems" at school and in a foster home.

"Star Ranch staff report that Mikie has had nine physical restraints in little over 30 days," the report filed in court records states. "He is
reported to be fighting, biting and fleeing."

On Sunday, authorities said, the boy was sent to "timeout" because of a violent outburst, then he banged his head on the ground.

"He had a troubled life and that (head banging) was one of the ways he got attention," said Rand Southard, director of Star Ranch, a private, nonprofit facility that opened in 1989.
[WAY HE GOT ATTENTION? Totally incompetent and has no business working with children]

State placements account for most of the clientele of 32 boys, 7 to 17 years old, with learning disabilities or emotional problems.

Southard said he's confident that the staffer, whom he described as "devastated" by Garcia's death, had followed guidelines.

"We're all upset that this happened," Southard said. "We desperately try to take care of the children in our care. This is a terrible accident."

Ragsdale said Travis County Medical Examiner Roberto Bayardo reported that the autopsy and on-scene circumstances led him to conclude "that the
decedent came to his death as a result of suffocation during physical restraint."

Forced restraint has been associated with at least 20 other deaths in Texas since 1990, according to an Austin watchdog group for psychiatric patients.

Lee Spiller of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Texas said such deaths seldom result in prosecution because - as in this situation - the
restraint is described as an effort to aid a troubled client.

"We'd rather see all the facilities be restraint-free," Spiller said Wednesday. "A restraint-free facility may or may not be practical, but I
would say the use of deadly force on small children is definitely impractical."

[email protected]

[Anonymous]

Oh my, that brings tears to my eyes. How tragic for this to have happened in the land of the Free. I hope parents wake up and realize this can happen to their son/daughter at any time without cause.

Parents, I beg you to think before you put your child in this situation. No child deserves a life sentence, especially after going through the abuse at home as well. Having your child die is a very real possibility in any facility. Yes, everyone dies. But these parents are ensuring if it does happen in a facility, their child will die a violent death. Please stop doing this to our children, Please.

[Anonymous]

These sick program supporters all contribute to these deaths. They continue the acceptance of unqualified retards caring for teens with special needs. They hire someone big enough to subdue them, which means also big enough to kill them. Poor kid. This just sucks. :sad:

[Deborah]

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/ ... e62a7.html
6 Dec
The ranch, opened 16 years ago by nonprofit Star Programs Inc., has been investigated five times since Dec. 1, 2003, on allegations of abuse and/or neglect, including instances of inappropriate restraints and insufficient supervision, said Patrick Crimmins of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
"Two of those were ruled out, three are pending," Crimmins said. "Any time a child dies, it is very sad and very unfortunate. We will investigate fully."

http://www.statesman.com/hp/content/met ... raint.html
8 Dec
Christening "Mikie" Garcia had been placed in "time out" at Star Ranch on Sunday evening after refusing to take a shower but then began banging his head against the sidewalk and acting violently toward staff members, Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer said.
Located in Ingram, just west of Kerrville, Star Ranch is a private, Christian nonprofit treatment center for boys ages 7 to 17 who have suffered severe emotional and physical abuse.

http://web.dailytimes.com/story.lasso?wcd=18300
9 Dec
Two staff injured, one critical after roll-over while out buying ping-pong balls at 11:30pm.
Cody Wayne Young, 25, was transported to University Hospital in San Antonio by Critical Air Helicopter. The other staff members ? Ivy Seeds, 26, of Ingram and Justin Rumbo, 25, of Harlingen ? were reportedly released from hospital on Thursday.

http://web.dailytimes.com/story.lasso?wcd=18299
9 Dec
The autopsy indicated a bruise on Garcia?s arm could have been caused by the restraint, and superficial marks on the boy?s head were consistent with banging his head on the sidewalk. When complete, the investigation will be presented to a Kerr County grand jury, Hierholzer said.

According to records filed in court this past September, Mikie Garcia?s 13-year-old brother lives in a foster home in a neighboring county and his 11-year-old sister lives in another Hill Country facility. All three children were recipients of multiple medications prescribed to combat behavioral and/or psychological issues.

Garcia?s death is devastating to Star Ranch?s staff, Southard said Wednesday. However, it won?t stop the program from continuing to try to fulfill its mission, he said.

?Colleen (his wife and Star Ranch co-founder) and I, and everyone out here, has to ask themselves are you willing to put this level of feeling and emotion in your job?? Southard said. ?Are you willing risk the relationship with another child? The answer for me right now is ?Yes.?

?We want to provide for the children that needs us,? he said. ?We?re constantly striving to make it better.?

[TheWho]

That is just awful, it is such a tragedy for everyone involved, family, other kids at the school.  We had a child in our community who was brain damaged by banging his head on the concrete floor at school as other class mates looked on.  Nobody at the school was trained on how to handle the situation so they all stood around, one teacher tried to stop him but he was just too strong, very tramatic for the children to witness.
It sucks that we cant do more for these kids.  The poor counselor will have to live with this the rest of his life, it is not clear from the article weather he was properly trained to handle the situation, proper restraint etc. but either way I am sure he is blaming himself.
There needs to be more training for staff and teachers to deal with these situations so that kids arent harming themselves.  Its about time the state takes notice.

[TheWho]

On 2005-12-09 19:09:00, Anonymous wrote:

"That is just awful, it is such a tragedy for everyone involved, family, other kids at the school.  We had a child in our community who was brain damaged by banging his head on the concrete floor at school as other class mates looked on.  Nobody at the school was trained on how to handle the situation so they all stood around, one teacher tried to stop him but he was just too strong, very tramatic for the children to witness.

It sucks that we cant do more for these kids.  The poor counselor will have to live with this the rest of his life, it is not clear from the article weather he was properly trained to handle the situation, proper restraint etc. but either way I am sure he is blaming himself.

There needs to be more training for staff and teachers to deal with these situations so that kids arent harming themselves.  Its about time the state takes notice.

"

One of the problems is that restraints are illegal in some states.  Even though you are in a situation where you are trying to stop self abuse the only acceptable methods are the "Basket Hold" and a take down called the "floor hold".  If the floor hold was used and the child is on their back it is easier to monitor how they are doing.  The problem is you may need several people and this counselor may have been alone.  Using a four or five point restraint system isnt typically acceptable in many state programs, even though it would have saved this boys life.  Hopefully the state will take a hard look at itself and mandate training techniques if it turns out to be the issue.  I hate hearing stories like that.

[Nihilanthic]

A few months of some judo or juujutsu would make it very safe, TSW. Hell, youre in korea, go find a school or the korean counterpart "Yudo".

I guarantee you someone with at least a year of practical experience who doesnt WANT to hurt a kid would not hurt that kid, or let them hurt themself. Untrained idiots or people who dont care or WANT to hurt them, will.

When we talk to god, it's prayer. When god talks to us, it's schizophrenia.
--Lily Tomlin, American actress

[AtomicAnt]

On 2005-12-10 06:28:00, Three Springs Waygookin wrote:

"It has nothing to do with wanting to hurt a kid, or not wanting to hurt a kid. Their just is no way to completely eliminate the potential risk for injuries or death in a restraint. All the training in the world can not cope with the contigencies faced in real world situations that do not have the nice control atmosphere of a dojo.



In the real world restraints never seem to ever happen on a nice padded surface with people about to supervise the situation. Most of the time they take place on a nice concrete floor, or with your left kidney balanced on a sharp rock with some pissed off kid kicking you in the nuts.



Restraints never seem to go down with that textbook precision in training classes that have you break it down by the steps as you ease the youth to the nice padded floor, and carefully work through the motions to avoid injury. Never do you see a restraint take place where you have all the staff in world to help control the situation before it escalates out of hand.



This is coming from a person who single handedly performed over 200 standing, and prone restraints and only witnessed 5 major injuries during that time, and 4 of them were to myself. The one injury of significance was a broken collar bone that also resulted in me dislocating a finger.



Sorry Niles but practical experience tells me that their is just no way to do it safely, whether the person wants to hurt the kid, or even whether the person wants to prevent the kid from hurting themselves.  



 

What is a committee?  A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.    
-- Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960

"

Sorry TSW, but my bullshit radar is blaring and screaming. I understand what you mean about surfaces, supervision, and all, but the danger you describe is in blunt trama and results in broken bones. This kid suffocated. I've been in enough wrestling matches, real fights, and parental restraining situations (from both sides) to know that if someone lets a kid suffocate, they are either stupid or a murderer. You can tell when someone can't breath and you need to lighten up. It takes a pretty long time of not breathing to reach the point where someone cannot be revived. I'm not convinced there can be any valid excuse for suffocating a little kid to death.

[Anonymous]

If restraints are so inherently dangerous, perhaps they should be outlawed all together. There has been an unacceptable number of deaths. My contention, based on experience is that you can safely hold a small child who has lost it until they settle down; but you have to be ?very skilled? and possess a genuine caring, in order to restrain a person passed the age of 5 or 6 without causing injury to them or self.  The obvious reason, because you can no longer ?hold? them. They are stronger and will fight harder to get out of a restraint, which feels like punishment.

The feelings that are propelling them into anger, rage, indignation could be channeled in a more constructive way. The stick suggestion was good. But to just ?put them down? is not therapeutic or helpful. Even if you shut the kid?s feelings down, they will ooze out at a later time, often passive aggressively. The anger is covering more vulnerable feelings of sadness and/or fear. This is basic knowledge and I don?t know why people who work with this population are not trained to view it that way. Humans are not maliciously violent by nature- particularly children. In these situations humor can go along way, but ultimately, if you do not genuinely care about the child, they KNOW it, and therefore will not let you in or be motivated to cooperate. I think programs know this too, and knowing that you can?t train staff to genuinely care, punishment is the only option, with all its inherent risks.

Starting with his refusal to take a shower.  How could anyone view Time out as a solution or motivation? A refusal to shower should never end in death. Why was it more important to the staff that he shower than to the child? Was this a stand-off of wills? The adult demonstrating equally 'unreasonable' /?juvenile? behavior?

Kids in programs are highly likely to experience staff who are young and genuinely ignorant. They have a 3 or 4 step ?procedure? to follow and are not thinking about what?s really going on inside the kid.  Black and white, no grey. No compromise. Just follow the rules or suffer the consequences. Too young to have children of their own and working off theories and practices they?ve learned in school or from the program. Some don?t even have schooling. Bottom line, I don?t think they are addressing kid?s real needs, don?t understand what?s under the child?s anger and how to address it, and do not possess genuine caring.  So, the child is ?changed? or killed with punishment for not possessing the ability to suppress his feelings or cooperate in spite of them.  

Also, restrained 9 times in a month. Might the environment be too confrontational to be therapeutic? How do rigid rules and harsh punishment help a child like this relax? Kids relax and become more cooperative when their real needs are being met.

Might his behavior have been at least in part caused by the chemical soup of drugs he was on? They obviously weren?t eliminating the feelings that dictated his behavior. It was exposed recently that foster kids in Tx were on as many as 14 psychiatric drugs- proving ground for TMAP. The main proponent of drugging stated in a hearing that drugs were necessary for this population because they came from a bad gene pool. Far too many in the industry actually feel disdain for these kids and therefore have no business working with them.

Over and over I see programs and foster parents professing to care, when their actual motivation is to profit off these distressed and disoriented kids, while trying to whip them into shape. Will they ever get it, that punishment doesn?t heal a scared or broken heart.

[screann]

I couldnt have said it better. :tup:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:  :tup:

[MADMOM]

MY SON WAS AT THE STAR RANCH AND HE HAS DEMONSTRATED THE RESTRAINT TECHNIQUES USED BY THE STAFF WHILE HE WAS THERE.  HE CLAIMS THAT THEY LAY THE CHILDREN ON THEIR STOMACH WITH THEIR ARMS ACROSS THEIR CHEST AND THE STAFF MEMBER PRESSES DOWN ON THEIR BACK WITH THEIR KNEE.  I HAVE TRIED TO TELL THIS TO THE SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT BUT THEY DON'T WANT TO TALK TO MY SON.  THE OWNERS OF THE STAR RANCH ARE WELL KNOWN IN THIS SMALL TEXAS HILL COUNTRY COMMUNITY AND I HAVE A FEELING THAT NOTHING WILL COME OF THIS "INVESTIGATION".  MY SON TOLD HIS STORY ON KSAT NEWS OUT OF SAN ANTONIO.  I CONTACTED THE SHERIFFS DEPARTMENT AND THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY TURNS THEIR HEADS!  THE RANCH, NOR THE POLICE ARE RELEASING THE NAME OF THE STAFF MEMBER THAT DID THIS.  MY SON HAS GIVEN ME 4 NAMES OF STAFF MEMBERS THAT PRACTICED THIS TYPE OF RESTRAINT ON HIM WHILE HE WAS THERE.  SOMEBODY HAS TO DO SOMETHING FOR THESE CHILDREN THAT ARE THERE.  MOST OF THEM ARE PLACED BY CPS.  THEY DO NOT HAVE MOMS AND DADS LOOKING AFTER THEM AND THEIR CASE WORKERS ARE NOT DOING THEIR JOB.  I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM PEOPLE OUT THERE WITH EXPERIENCE IN THE FIELD OF RTC'S.  PLEASE E-MAIL ME OR POST TO THIS BOARD.  I WILL CHECK IT DAILY.  THANK YOU

[Anonymous]

Yep, Chase Moody died after being restrained improperly and his dad sued the outfit that ran the wilderness camp in Texas where he died.

It's tragic that children are at the mercy of untrained, under-educated staff who work at these RTC's and wilderness camps with little to no fear of being held accountable for the maltreatment (even death) of these kids.

No program is a safe program if children's safety comes last.

[mofunnow]

I would like to talk with you about this Star Ranch. Please email me at [email protected]

Best,
Jim

[Nihilanthic]

MADMOM - talk to ISAC and a lawyer before you email anyone. They might be a lawyer working for the program who will try to sue you for "slander" or some other troglodyte who might try to use what you say against you.

Its happened before...

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
--Robert A. Heinlen, American science-ficiton author

[justamomintx]

My son attended Star Ranch last summer. He had a really positive experience, following a year of extreme emotional outbursts and police intervention at school (he's 12 now). He has Asperger's Syndrome.
The staff at Star Ranch never physically restrained him, and took great care to help him learn to deal with his emotions. We were looking forward to sending him back for two weeks next year, BUT....so many factors; like, how do you really know, in a camp designed for children with behavioural difficulties, what the staff is trained to do (beyond what they tell and show you)? What SHOULD they have done with an aggressive boy who was harming himself? What about all the kids who have been helped at that camp? Not to mention the 10 years they've served kids in the residential center and school.
I don't know about anyone else, but not that many camps offer help to kids that aren't "the norm". My son had about -0- options for camp; but he went to Star Ranch, learned self-control and responsibility and independence, and was never punished. He had some restrictions on his time when he wouldn't cooperate.
He got to fish, swim, care for animals and learned new skills every day.
He came back a different, more mature and happier boy. So, now what?
Now we look for a new camp, I guess. It is really a tragedy for so many people, beginning with poor Christening.
Thanks for hearing my side.