While I was researching the suicide of Brendan Jon Ogonowski:
Man sues Grove School in Madison over injuriesBy Alexandra Sanders, New Haven Register, Published: Monday, January 17, 2011MADISON — A Rhode Island man has filed a lawsuit, alleging the Grove School used improper restraint procedures during an altercation.
The man, identified as John Doe to protect his identity, was arrested in September 2008 on a third-degree assault charge after staff at the private therapeutic boarding school for adolescents with emotional and social problems, tried to restrain him. The charge has since been dismissed, but now the lawsuit says he is suing the school after sustaining multiple injuries, including a black eye, ruptured blood vessels, a bloody nose and bruises on his face and arms.
“He was there because they supposedly knew how to take care of him,” Doe’s attorney, Diane Polan of New Haven, said recently. “Kids admitted (to the Grove School) are not supposed to end up looking the way my client looked.”
On Friday, Grove School Director Richard Chorney would not specify the restraint procedures used in the school.
“People are obviously trained as they would be in every hospital or school,” said Chorney. “It is not something we have very much of at all, if and when it does happen. I believe that anything that is developed is going to end up being spurious.”
According to the lawsuit, prior to 2008, when Doe, 19, began attending the Grove School, he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder, and had been hospitalized three times for treatment of those issues. Doe had not attended school for six months before he enrolled at the Grove School and, during that time, he had expressed suicidal thoughts.
His parents had given the Grove School staff paperwork detailing his mental illness and behavioral issues and noted in a “Special Procedures” section that he “needs space to decompress” and he is “very fragile.”
Copies of the information were given to two of three staff members listed in the lawsuit, Sean Kursawe, the assistant principal; and Robert Burgett, a teacher and part of the Residential Behavioral Management program. Andrew Pollack, associate director of the school, was not given the information, according to the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, during the first 10 days of Doe’s residence at the school, he had nine altercations with students and staff, he threatened to kill himself and run away from school, he cut his arms and he told the staff he was “stressed and overwhelmed.”
Around the 10th day, Doe became agitated, called his parents and asked them to pick him up, while he was packing his bags. Kursawe heard Doe on the phone with his mother threatening to kill himself if she did not pick him up and Kursawe said he would call the police if Doe left the school, which prompted him to lock himself in the bathroom, according to the lawsuit.
"They are supposed to de-escalate the situation, not escalate it,” said Polan. “The school holds itself out as saying that this is what their employees are trained to do. Every kid there has behavioral or psychiatric problems and they hold themselves out as a professional school that provides holistic treatments.”
The lawsuit states that at the time of the incident, there were no trained security staff members on the premises.
When Pollack, the “on-call” administrator at the time, arrived at the Green Cottage, where Doe was staying, he left the bathroom, cursed at Pollack and went into his bedroom.
“The staff pushed the door to his room open instead of following the restraint procedures they were taught and went berserk,” said Polan. “(Pollack) didn’t read the file and he didn’t know anything about the child’s issues so things went from bad to worse.”
During the incident, Pollack and Doe both sustained injuries.
“They punched him in the eye,” said Polan. “I acknowledge that people need to be restrained, but people have to be trained in dealing with psychiatric patients and they aren’t supposed to be punished for having those symptoms.”
All three men are still listed as staff members on the Grove School website.
“It was obviously mishandled and I think it is really shocking that a child with psychiatric disabilities goes to a private residential treatment facility and ends up with the injuries he sustained,” said Polan.
According to the Crisis Prevention Institute, an international organization that offers safe behavior management method training, nonviolent crisis intervention involves reducing the risk of injury, complying with legislative standards, minimizing exposure to liability and promoting care, welfare, safety and security.
Doe filed a separate lawsuit against the town of Madison when he was 17, after the arrest, when his name was released on an adult arrest log. That suit is pending.
