Fornits

Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Deborah on October 17, 2002, 10:55:00 PM

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Deborah on October 17, 2002, 10:55:00 PM

Newshawk: Suzy Wills
Pubdate: 10-17-02
Source: Dallas Morning News
Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/ (http://www.dallasnews.com/)
Author: TANYA EISERER
Webpage Reference:
http://www.dallasnews.com/localnews/cit ... tyouthcamp (http://www.dallasnews.com/localnews/city/richardson/stories/101702dnmetyouthcamp)
2.682ea.html
*****************************************************
Death of teen at therapy facility investigated Richardson 17-year-old died being restrained by staff in Hill Country
10/17/2002

By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
Authorities are investigating Monday's death of a 17-year-old Richardson youth who died while being restrained by staff members at a rural Hill Country program for troubled youths.

Charles "Chase" Moody died on the grounds of On Track, a private therapeutic program on a 6,000-acre former exotic-game preserve near
Mason.

"We all want to ... understand what happened so this never happens again," said
Marguerite Sallee, president and chief executive officer of The Brown Schools,
a company based in Nashville, Tenn., that owns and operates On Track.

Law enforcement officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday
night.

Charles Moody, the boy's father, said he has many unanswered questions. "I want the truth to come out," said Mr. Moody, a Dallas lawyer. "I certainly wonder whether it could have been prevented." He said his son, who had been having drug, alcohol and anger management problems, had been in the program for about a week.

Company officials said two staff members put the teen into a "physical hold" after he became physically and verbally aggressive. Staff members then called 911 for help.
By the time officers arrived, the youth was having difficulty breathing and paramedics were called, but he died before they arrived, company officials said.

Ms. Sallee said she thinks the preliminary investigation indicates that staff members followed proper procedures. She said she has met with a Texas Ranger who was investigating the death.

Mr. Moody's parents were immediately notified, as were the parents of the six
other youths at the facility, company officials said.

On Track is a 28-day program for struggling youths between the ages of 13 and 17. The camp usually accommodates between five and 15 youths.

E-mail http://www.tdprs.state.tx.us/Child_Care ... fessionals (http://www.tdprs.state.tx.us/Child_Care/Information_for_Child_Care_Professionals)
/mncity.asp

Other interesting links:
CEDU acquired by Brown Schools
http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives ... ews03.html (http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives/1999/2/news03.html)

Chris Kocurek of Austin created On Track
http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives ... een02.html (http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives/1999/9/seen02.html)

In 2000 Kocurek at SageWalk Wilderness Program in Bend, Oregon
http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives ... een01.html (http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives/2000/5/seen01.html)
http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives ... ews02.html (http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives/2000/4/news02.html)

Bingo...here's the connection between Kocurek and Wardle
http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives ... een03.html (http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives/2000/5/seen03.html)
WARDLE HIRED BY SAGEWALK
(April 15, 2000) Chris Kocurek, Director of SageWalk, in Bend, Oregon, 800-877-1922, announced they have hired Mark Wardle for wilderness operations. Wardle had been Director of OnTrack Wilderness in Texas.
A year later Wardle is at Skyline Journey.
http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives ... een01.html (http://www.strugglingteens.com/archives/2001/6/seen01.html)

And remember, Sagewalk employed Aaron Bacon's murderer, Eric Henry during a 9 month diversion agreement following Bacon's death. Then went on to Obsidian Trails where another death occured.
http://www.contac.org/contaclibrary/tragedy28.htm (http://www.contac.org/contaclibrary/tragedy28.htm)

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Deborah on October 23, 2002, 10:23:00 PM

http://www.austin360.com/statesman/edit ... ews_1.html (http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/wednesday/news_1.html)



How ironic is it that the father of the deceased defended Brown Schools in the 1988 restraint death of Brandon Hadden. Then his ex-wife sends their son to Brown's On Track Wilderness Program without his knowledge, where he is killed by an illegal restraint???  Too weird.



Excerpts:

Moments before a 17-year-old died in their care last week, employees at a Mason County wilderness program held the youth in a restraint outlawed a year ago because of its lethal potential, officials at the camp said Tuesday.



Charles Chase Moody is at least the fifth youth to die in Texas since 1988 after being restrained in a facility or program run by the Brown Schools. Officials for the Nashville-based company acknowledged the deaths and the fact that Moody had been placed facedown in a prone position.



Moody, who is divorced, said he did not know that his son, who was taking medication for anger issues and had been in a treatment facility before for drug and anger problems, had been sent to the On Track wilderness program in Mason.



The first death occurred in 1988 at South Austin's Healthcare Rehabilitation Center, which has since been renamed. An 18-year-old, Brandon Hadden of East Texas, died after being restrained in a straitjacket and held facedown on a bed, according to Michael Slack of Austin, who represented Hadden's mother.



"He started to vomit in their presence . . . and choked to death with two staff members continuing to hold him down," Slack said.



Charles Moody (father of the deceased), who was the defense lawyer for the Brown Schools in that case, settled it during trial in 1997 for an undisclosed amount.



But critics such as Jerry Boswell, president of the Austin chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, say these cases are occurring too frequently.



"The more you look at a situation like this, the more incensed you get," Boswell said. "How many children have to die . . . before you lose a license in this state?"





[ This Message was edited by: Deborah on 2002-10-23 19:24 ]

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Leah on January 07, 2003, 09:47:00 PM

As you can plainly see from the dates on the links you gave, Wardle had left On Track a couple of years prior to the death there.  I think trying to link the two deaths ( On Track and Skyline Journey) is a STRETCH!!! Please.  Is this a witch hunt?

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on January 07, 2003, 10:34:00 PM

Is this a witch hunt?

I suppose so, if you want to refer to yourself as such. Personally, I could come up with somewhat stronger terms.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on January 07, 2003, 10:37:00 PM

How ironic is it that the father of the deceased defended Brown Schools in the 1988 restraint death of Brandon Hadden. Then his ex-wife sends their son to Brown's On Track Wilderness Program without his knowledge, where he is killed by an illegal restraint??? Too weird.

I don't think it's that weird at all. Think about it. Where do these people draw professional services? Generally, from the TOUGHLOVE parent groups and other supporters. It's as natural a consequence of the whole sick, twisted cult mentality as the tragic death of Patrick Dorismond.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Deborah on January 08, 2003, 11:49:00 PM

Camp staff is accused of abuse in teen death
If upheld, state's finding will keep 3 employees out of child-care work
By Jonathan Osborne

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Saturday, January 4, 2003

State investigators have accused three Hill Country wilderness camp employees of physical abuse and neglect in connection with the
restraint-related death of a teenager in their care, an official with the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services said Friday.

According to a Travis County autopsy report, 17-year-old Chase Moody died Oct. 14 of traumatic asphyxia, which investigators said occurred
after he was physically restrained in a prone position by the camp's staff. Officials with the Brown Schools, the Nashville-based company
that owns and operates the On Track wilderness program, have disputed the medical examiner's ruling.

Each of the accused staff members, whose names have not been released,will have two opportunities to appeal the investigators' findings -- first with the regulatory department's administration and then with the
state office of administrative hearings.

If the reviews uphold the accusations, the three staff members' names would be entered into a central registry as having been cited for abuse
and neglect of a child, department spokesman Geoffrey Wool said.

"Everyone who is involved in licensed child care in Texas, their background is checked on this central registry," Wool said. "The finding
of physical abuse would basically prohibit you from ever being employed in licensed child care in Texas. That's just a hands-down ruling."

Brown Schools spokeswoman Diane Huggins said Friday she had not yet learned of the findings and could not comment.

State investigators also are looking into whether the Brown Schools violated any state regulatory standards, which prohibit certain kinds of
physical restraints, in connection with the incident. That investigation is expected to be wrapped up within the next two weeks.

The findings, which are part of a report that has not been released, are separate from an ongoing criminal investigation. Ronald Sutton, the
McCulloch County district attorney with jurisdiction over Mason County, said he plans to take that case to a grand jury sometime within the next few months. He said the regulatory department's report would be helpful.


"It's interesting," Sutton said. "I'd like to read the findings."

The Brown Schools operates residential treatment centers, wilderness camps and boarding schools that for the most part focus on treating
troubled or disabled youths. Huggins said her company is cooperating fully with authorities.

The camp in Mason County is marketed as a 28-day therapeutic adventure program.

On Nov. 5, Brown Schools officials voluntarily stopped admitting children into On Track until the investigation into Moody's death is
resolved. In December, the company lost its lease to the land it used -- 6,000 acres owned by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Ron George, deputy director of the department's wildlife division, said the termination of the lease was unrelated to Moody's death.

"There was a series of cases of On Track not delivering services they said they would provide -- building things, clearing brush -- those kind
of things," George said. "The review of the contract was already in place before that incident took place."

Moody, who lived in Richardson with his mother, had been sent to the camp primarily to work out anger issues, his parents said.

According to Huggins, Moody lashed out at one of the counselors on the night of his death. Staff members then placed him in what's known as the
"team control position," where they interlock legs, pull back the person's wrists and cup their hands on the shoulders. In the struggle,
they fell forward and continued to restrain Moody on the ground while using a cell phone to call for help.

Sutton has said it was his understanding that at least one of the staff members was sitting on Moody when sheriff's deputies arrived. Department
standards prohibit any pressure being applied to a youth's back when being held in a prone restraint.

Huggins has repeatedly said that no weight was placed on Moody's back and that the On Track staff handled the situation appropriately and
followed all the proper procedures.

The company also hired Bexar County Chief Medical Examiner Vincent DiMaio to review the autopsy report. DiMaio, who disputed the Travis
County medical examiner's findings, has said he believes Moody died of "excited delirium." In other words, Moody's highly excited state,
combined with the antidepressants he was taking, caused his heart to stop. The Travis County autopsy found that he suffocated.

The boy's father, Charles Moody, a former defense lawyer, represented the Brown Schools in a 1988 restraint-related death. He's now a
plaintiff's lawyer who specializes in medical malpractice.

He said he learned of the investigator's findings on Friday. "It certainly comes as no surprise given the lack of answers or information
I've been given based on very specific questions I posed to (officials at the Brown Schools)," Moody said. "They can't possibly, in good
conscience, in my mind, say that they handled this situation appropriately in every facet. There's just no way. You just don't have
this outcome."

josb-@statesman.com; 445-3621

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: FaceKhan on January 11, 2003, 02:32:00 PM

Considering the place like most fad treatment programs was falsely advertising its and its staffs qualification to treat kids in the first place, it should not even be a qestion as to what kind of restraint was used. Any restraint at these places should be considered assualt and deaths resulting from them should be considered felony murder (fraud and child abuse being the underlying crime) and the perpetrators should get a needle in their arm.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Deborah on January 14, 2003, 09:14:00 AM

http://www.strugglingteens.com/news/ontrackclosure.html (http://www.strugglingteens.com/news/ontrackclosure.html)

CLOSURE OF ON TRACK
THERAPEUTIC ADVENTURE PROGRAM

(January 9, 2003) - We recently received notice that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will not renew the lease of their property to the On Track Therapeutic Adventure Program in Mason, Texas. Therefore, we have reluctantly decided to close the program.

We are gratified that On Track has had many significant successes in their work for families with children struggling with emotional and behavioral issues. Over the past five years, On Track has served 500 children and their families.

On Track is a therapeutic adventure program for struggling adolescents, ages 13 - 17. The program is located on a 6,000-acre former exotic game preserve in the Texas Hill Country.

Contact: Diane Huggins
615.594.5265
dhug-@brownschools.com

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on February 05, 2003, 11:46:00 PM

I am Chase Moody's sister, and I do not appreciate what you are posting on this site.  Your facts are clearly not correct.  I ask that you refrain from posting more about my brother without my family's permission or the correct facts.  You should not make your opinion on a tragic issue public.  You know nothing about what happened and your insight is NOT appreciated!

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Deborah on February 06, 2003, 08:22:00 AM

Dear Anonymous,
With all due respect, I fail to understand your comment, "your facts are clearly not correct".
Most of what is posted here are news articles and people's opinions about the facts reported. If they are inaccurate, then perhaps you might want to shed some light on the subject.

Unfortunately, when a teen dies at a program, that is a public matter. To my knowledge citizens do have a right to post news articles and discuss and debate the details of any tragic event without permission from the family.

No one really knows what happened that night, only what the program and law enforcement reported to the papers. That is what we are discussing here, with the assumption that the facts were reported accurately.

Out of compassion for your suffering, I'd be willing to consider editing anything specific in  my posts that you find offensive to your family.
And, I'm sure we'd all appreciate a posting of any later articles that might be more accurate.
Deborah

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on February 06, 2003, 09:18:00 AM

>>I think trying to link the two deaths ( On Track and Skyline Journey) is a STRETCH!!!

Leah,Leah,Leah,
Linking the deaths was not my intention. That was your defensive and inaccurate interpretation.
You might have asked first, instead of publicly displaying your ignorance with that erroneous assumption.

I find it curious and interesting that Wardle was associated with an abusive program prior to opening Skyline. It speaks volumes to ME about his character.

The relationships of Program people are fascinating to me. How they move around, where they have worked, their relationship with abusive programs, the amount of money they give politicians, how long they work in the industry before they start their own program. Kinda like a public resume.

I imagine you're not a member of the Enquiring Minds Club...and probably resent me because I am.
Deborah

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Antigen on February 06, 2003, 01:07:00 PM

They seem to think that the cult rules extend to the world outside the cult. Just a week or so ago, I had some joker trying to get me to edit or add an adendum to a published news item claiming a the newly named organization had nothing to do with the same organization under it's previous name.

He that will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not, is a slave.
--William Drummond (1585-1640)

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on February 10, 2003, 12:54:00 PM

After reading all of the insights, I must agree with "Anonymous"...who I am assuming to be A.M.  People with no knowledge of the family and Chase himself have no right to post any comments on the situation. The pain that the family has endured in the past months has been more than any family should have to go through and gossip such as that being posted here does not do anything to relieve the situation, but instead adds to the stress of all of those involved.  Instead of gossiping about Chase, be thankful that you have your family safe and intact.  Then, go play basketball.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Deborah on February 10, 2003, 02:38:00 PM

"Gossip"?  We must have a different definition.
"Adds to the stress of all of those involved"  Sorry I can't see your point. Are the family members visiting this site? If they are, wouldn't that be a form of self-tourture? If indeed these posts bothered them.
I have much empathy for their personal suffering. I knew a teen who was killed in a program.
I feel it's very important to talk about these tragedies, and let other parents know the risks they are taking when they abdicate responsibility for their offspring.
Sorry to disappoint.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Deborah on May 23, 2003, 01:55:00 AM

The Austin American Statesman is running a series of articles on illegal restraint, wilderness, Zaffarini's bill, and specifically Moody's death.
The father has hired Johnnie Cochran!!! Another important point that is made- the lack of monitoring and regulating by State agencies. I'm now of the opinion that Wilderness programs, by their nature, can not be adequately monitored and should just be banned.
Deborah

http://www.statesman.com/asection/conte ... ews_2.html (http://www.statesman.com/asection/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/news_2.html)


When discipline turns fatal
Texas lacks tough law on prone restraint that's banned in three states

By Jonathan Osborne and Mike Ward

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Sunday, May 18, 2003

MASON --The deputy's headlights broke the middle-of-nowhere October darkness as he rolled down the red-dirt road to a campsite.

He fixed his cruiser's spotlight on the scene: tent silhouettes, a small fire and -- as Mason County Deputy Harold Low would later describe in
his official report -- 17-year-old Chase Moody chest-down, pinned to the ground by three camp counselors.

Low handcuffed one arm and flipped the boy over. That's when he saw the vomit and realized that Chase wasn't breathing.

The Richardson teenager did not make it off the hilltop alive that night, and he wasn't the first to lose his life this way.

Moody was one of thousands of Texas children and tens of thousands nationwide who have become part of a booming $60 billion industry that promises to reform teens who have veered off the path of acceptable behavior.

Whether they have serious psychological problems, rebellious streaks or parents who have lost their patience, these children soon find themselves at the mercy of a system for which there is scant oversight or accountability and spotty record-keeping.

And there is no easy way for parents to compare the track records of various programs.

The inability to rein in the widespread use of improper physical restraints, such as the one the state investigators believe was used on Chase Moody, is emblematic of efforts to regulate the industry itself.

That night, at the On Track therapeutic wilderness program, Chase Moody became one more name on a list of what are believed to be hundreds of youth and adults in this country who have died in the past decade after being held in a physical restraint in a residential care setting.

Chase Moody also became at least the 44th youth or adult in Texas to die under similar circumstances since 1988. And in the aftermath of his death, Chase has become the latest reminder of state lawmakers' unwillingness to pass tougher laws governing restraint that could prevent other people from dying this way or even to better track the body count.

"How many more kids have to die before they do something about it?" Chase's father, Dallas lawyer Charles Moody, asked.

In 1998, at the request of the Hartford (Conn.) Courant, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis estimated that 50 to 150 adults and children
die each year during or shortly after being placed in a restraint. The analysis was based largely on data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and New York, the only state that in 1998 investigated all deaths in institutions.

The Courant confirmed 142 restraint-related deaths of adults and children since 1988. The true death count, according to the Courant,
could be three to 10 times higher because many cases are not reported to authorities,according to the statistical estimate.

In 1999, a report from the U.S. General Accounting Office pointed out the government's deficiency. (Read more about the GAO's findings about the lack of regulation and adequate record-keeping of the use of restraints at statesman.com/specialreports/restraint/).

Four years later, no one knows the toll, largely because efforts to track or research such deaths have not taken hold in every state or at the federal level.

At least two more youths have died this year after being restrained: one in Colorado, the other in California. Chase Moody was at least the third youth to die in Texas last year.

Just two days before Chase's death, on Oct. 12, Maria Mendoza stopped breathing moments after being placed in a restraint by staff members at
Krause Children's Center in Katy, according to a Department of Protective and Regulatory Services investigation. The Harris County medical examiner's office ruled that the 14-year-old died of "mechanical" or traumatic asphyxiation. In simple terms, that means external pressure or the position of her body prevented her from
breathing.

In February 2002, 15-year-old Latasha Bush died several days after being restrained by staff at the Daystar Residential Center in Southeast
Texas, a DPRS investigation concluded. Again, the medical examiner listed mechanical asphyxiation as the cause of death.

Travis County Deputy Medical Examiner Elizabeth Peacock ruled that Chase Moody died the same way, choking on a last supper of macaroni and green
beans as crushing pressure on his torso forestalled any draws for air.

The Brown Schools, which owned the camp and based its administrative operations in Austin, have disputed the autopsy with their own expert,
who contends that Chase died from excited delirium, which means he became so agitated and enraged that his heart stopped. (Read more about
the medical argument of traumatic asphyxia vs. excited delirium at
statesman.com/specialreports/restraint/.)

Regardless, critics say the tragedy could -- and should --have been prevented. As Charles Moody told the state Senate Health and Human
Services Committee in April, Chase "choked on his own vomit, and nobody even knew it."

Little enforcement


Prone restraints, such as the one Chase Moody wound up in, are discouraged in Texas and many other states, and entirely banned in at least three.

Texas prison officials consider such restraints so dangerous that they ban guards from employing the techniques on even the most violent inmates.

Prison rules prohibit pressure from being applied to a convict's neck, back, chest or stomach and mandate that "the supervisor shall ensure the
offender is continuously monitored to identify breathing difficulties, loss of consciousness or other medical concerns, and seek immediate
medical treatment if necessary." They also mandate that offenders shall be placed onto their side or into a sitting position "as soon as
practicable."

"Once they go to the ground, there can be problems," said Larry Todd, spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Texas also is one of a handful of states with strong regulations limiting the use of restraints in therapeutic settings. However, regulators lack effective means to enforce their own rules. And in Texas, even watered-down legislation to ban the potentially fatal restraints has little chance making a difference, even if approved.

The Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services, the agency responsible for regulating the use of restraint in private 24-hour
residential settings for youth, licenses nine therapeutic wilderness programs and 77 youth residential treatment centers statewide. The
agency's residential child-care licensing division, which receives a budget of $2.2 million annually, also is responsible for 65 emergency
shelters and the state's thousands of foster and adoptive homes.

The division's 27 inspectors and 12 investigators visit 24-hour care facilities, which include wilderness programs and residential treatment
centers, every 5 to 12 months and every time a report is received related to child abuse, neglect or other violations.

The only available records from the DPRS, which run from 1998 to the present, show that at least six youths have died during or shortly after
being placed in a physical restraint, including an additional death at a facility owned by the Brown Schools.

Much of the agency's investigations are kept confidential, and the documentation released to the American-Statesman is far from complete;
often missing are dates of death, ages, circumstances and any supporting documentation for the findings.

In one instance, a letter summarizing a 2000 restraint-related death at a Brown Schools center in San Antonio was a terse four paragraphs that
gave few details. More details from that file were in an attached press release from the Brown Schools.

In it, the Brown Schools called "natural" the death of a 9-year-old boy who, according to court documents, was held to the ground until he
vomited and stopped breathing.

Independently, the Statesman has verified -- through media reports, court documents and watchdog groups -- at least 10 more juvenile deaths that occurred between 1988 and 1998 in other Texas facilities, some of which were licensed and regulated by the DPRS, including three more restraint-related deaths at facilities owned by the Brown Schools.

More deaths have been reported by various advocacy and watchdog groups, but the details of those could not be independently verified.

Previously, some restraint-related deaths were simply ruled natural and the details never passed on to any agencies. That happened in the case
of 16-year-old Dawn Renay Perry, who died in 1993 after being placed in a restraint at the Behavior Training Research center in Manvel near Houston. Last summer, after a review, the Harris County medical examiner switched the cause of death from natural to accidental. The girl's mother has since sued the facility's owners.

Current legislation aims to clean up the reporting process, as well as to standardize the rules on restraint for every facility that uses the technique.

The bill would outlaw restraints that obstruct a person's airway, impair breathing or interfere with someone's ability to communicate.

It would restrict, but not prohibit, the use of prone restraints or restraints that place a person on his or her back. It also would
establish a multi-agency committee to write new regulations governing the use of restraints and to develop a better system to collect and
analyze data related to it.

But the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, stops short of ascribing criminal penalties, something advocates have long
asked for and an oversight parents of the dead are demanding.

"This bill does nothing," said Charles Moody, who would like to see violators face felony charges. "It's a joke. All it does is create a
focus group to talk about this issue."

Or as Jerry Boswell, president of Texas chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a mental health watchdog group, said, "It
deceives the public into thinking something meaningful has been done, and it hasn't."

Aaryce Hayes of Advocacy Inc., a federally funded nonprofit group with the mandate to review potential cases of abuse and neglect involving
people with disabilities, said the bill would at least lay the foundation for future legislation.

"It's a start," Hayes said. "If it did (have criminal penalties), we wouldn't be able to get the bill passed, just like the last two sessions."


Similar restraint bills have died in the House twice before amid opposition from some medical and psychiatric groups, as well as from
corporate lobbyists, whose ranks once included Gov. Rick Perry's chief of staff, Mike Toomey, a former lobbyist for the Brown Schools who
worked his way through college in a Waco residential treatment center for troubled youth.

Zaffirini said she would have preferred criminal penalties but that because such penalties could send more people to prison, the potential
fiscal impact in budget-cutting season would kill the bill.

"It's been controversial in the past, and I don't quite understand why," Zaffirini said. "It's confounding."

The Democrat House members' protest over redistricting last week only lessens the chances of the bill's passage.

A last-resort tool


In the world of therapy, from wilderness camps to private treatment centers, restraint is supposed to be a last-resort emergency tool for residents who pose a danger to themselves or others.

Instead, Hayes said, "What we find quite often is, it wasn't an emergency until staff intervened."

State reports show that in these facilities, the use of restraint is widespread. Records also show that restraints are used as a form of punishment, for the convenience of staff or to simply take control of a situation.

For example, at a youth ranch outside Brownwood, state documents show, children were being restrained for crying or simply for moving their
hands. At least one resident was restrained for refusing to go to school.
In another instance, a 16-year-old boy was belittled, threatened with the suspension of home visits and grabbed in the face before staff
members took him to the ground, where he died in 1999, according to a DPRS report.

The report says there is strong evidence that the boy "stopped struggling with staff -- and was largely unresponsive -- long before the
restraint was terminated."

The report also says it wasn't the first time restraints were misused at the New Horizons Ranch.

"Serious incident reports indicate that the staff sometimes used restraint

as punishment, for their convenience or when the child was not necessarily a danger to themselves or others," the state report says.

Such reasons all violate DPRS regulations but not the law. And the punishment for breaking the rules is tantamount to forcing the violators
to promise that they'll try not to do it again.

The state's December 1999 response to each of the findings at New Horizons: Correct the violations immediately.

"After that November investigation, we went out four times during the course of calendar year 2000," said Geoffrey Wool, the agency's director
of public relations. But the facility was not placed on any kind of probation.

New Horizons has not received any serious citations since at least January 2002.

When deaths occur, in Texas or elsewhere, rarely are they prosecuted. For families of the lost, civil lawsuits often are the only recourse.
But most of those get settled for confidential sums outside the courtroom and beyond public scrutiny.

In the past five years, the time span for which records are available, no restraint-related death has led to the revocation of a facility's
license in Texas. And the DPRS has levied no fines against offenders.

"What we are trying to do is work with all these providers to make sure they provide the care these kids need," Wool said. "We're not out to
hammer providers. We want to help them so they're there to help our kids."


When a facility is cited for any violation, the operators draw up a "corrective action plan." And, typically, that's it.

There's no "simple way," Wool said, to determine how many improper restraints that did not result in death were investigated or whether they led to serious injuries.

However, inspection and complaint investigations since January 2002 have recently been put on the agency's Web site and can be searched at
http://www.tdprs.state.tx.us (http://www.tdprs.state.tx.us).

An American-Statesman review of those records shows that statewide over the last 17 months, the DPRS has handed out at least 150 restraint-related citations for violations ranging from minor paperwork infractions to causing serious injury.

A 'seminal event'


Before Chase's death, On Track had never been cited for using improper restraints, although its training methods have been called into question
in prior complaints filed with the state that were later verified.

Yet after the onslaught of media attention surrounding Chase's death, state licensing investigators issued a scathing report that cited On Track for 28 violations, ranging from improperly restraining Chase as punishment and using a prohibited method of restraint to improper record keeping and numerous procedural violations.

Officials with the Brown Schools have repeatedly said the incident was handled properly.

However, former Brown Schools CEO Marguerite Sallee recognized the gravity of the situation. She told a meeting of reporters and editors at
the American-Statesman on the day the state's report was released that Chase's death could be the "seminal event that could bring the whole
company down."

Not six months later, she has left the company to become staff director for the United States Senate subcommittee on Children and Families in
Washington, a move she said was unrelated to the Chase Moody incident.

It's unclear what would've happened to the wilderness program had it remained open for business.

The company closed On Track in December after losing the lease to the 6,000-acre exotic-game ranch where the camp was located. Several months
later, it sold off all its residential treatment centers in the country, including facilities in San Marcos, Austin and San Antonio. Company
officials say the plans to sell the facilities were made before Chase's death.

A dispute over the state's findings is the company's only lingering business with the Texas agency.

That argument centers on whether the restraint used on Chase was performed the right way and for the right reasons.

In their report, state investigators contend that it was neither.

On Oct. 14, the day's activities had ended. According to Mason County Sheriff M.J. Metzger, Chase and other boys had been told to stop talking and go to sleep.

Mason County Chief Deputy Sheriff Bill Price said that according to his investigative notes, Chase wouldn't be quiet and was told to sleep
outside as punishment.

Words were exchanged. Chase, according to a police report, aimed racial slurs at the Hispanic counselors.

Brown Schools officials, without giving specifics, say Chase then became violent and lashed out at the staff, placing both himself and the others at risk.

The sheriff's investigation tells a more detailed story. According to Price, who based his comments on official statements from all those involved in the incident, Chase was arguing with one staff member, and the other two were standing a few steps away.

According to the statements, Price said, Chase walked toward the lone counselor and "kind of shoved him out of the way." The actual nature
of the physical contact, Price said, was described by different witnesses as a bump, shove or push.

"We've got different stories," Price said. "I think everybody agreed there was physical contact."

The counselor Chase confronted, along with another staff member, then placed Chase in a physical restraint referred to in the industry as the team control position, wherein staff members interlock legs with the subject, pull back the wrists and cup their hands on the person's
shoulder.

From there, all parties agree, they fell forward. Price said the third staff member then joined in the restraint.

"On all these statements here, the staff keeps asking him to comply and they would let him up, but he kept resisting," Price said, describing
the details in the affidavits.

"We have one resident saying he heard Chase saying he couldn't breathe; we've got two of them saying that."

After he was contacted by radio, it took Deputy Low about 13 minutes to wind his way back through the ranch to the campsite.

In the incident report, Low wrote that when he aimed his spotlight at the scene, he "saw three counselors sitting on the subject, lying face
down," Price said.

The Brown Schools has repeatedly denied that any pressure was placed on Chase's back.

The state's findings in the separate licensing investigation question whether the situation qualified as an emergency and accused the staff
members of taunting Chase with remarks that included, "Boy. Who you calling boy?"

In addition, the report says: * Chase was "subjected to cruel and unnecessary punishment when he was restrained for talking."

* The restraint was "inappropriately implemented, as it employed a technique that is prohibited by obstructing the airways of the child,
impairing his breathing."

* The staff "did not follow the facility's policies and procedures in handling the misbehavior of a resident, which resulted in a restraint and death of the child."

* The staff "did not document the total length of time the child was restrained."

"The bottom line: Chase Moody did not pose an emergency to himself or anybody else when he was put in this restraint," said David McLaughlin,
a lawyer working with the Cochran Firm, who is assisting high-profile lawyer Johnnie Cochran on the potential civil suit. "These three people
in the take-down . . . I'm not going to call them victims, but they were put in circumstances without the proper tools or skills to handle the
situation."


Sallee called the findings disappointing, one-sided and inaccurate.

"All they were doing was trying to protect themselves and the others,"

Sallee said of the staff members who placed Chase in the restraint. "The child was violent that night and had a history of violence."

Howard Falkenberg, a spokesman for the company, responded Thursday with this prepared statement:

"The death of a student last year in the On Track program is a tragedy that profoundly saddens us, and our sympathies remain with his family. At the same time, we know that our staff acted appropriately in very difficult circumstances. These are caring men who were devoted to
helping the young people in their charge, and they were properly trained to do their job."

An attorney's quest


The Brown Schools have been involved in four other restraint-related deaths over the past 15 years. And the company has received dozens of
improper restraint and licensing violations at its various residential treatment centers, according to an American-Statesman review of
licensing records. The last youth to die before Moody after being restrained in a Brown Schools program was 9-year-old Randy Steele, whose
death was written up in the four-paragraph memo from the DPRS.

Like many children with attention-deficit disorder, Randy was bored with school, too smart for his own good and constantly in trouble. When he was diagnosed as bipolar, his father enrolled him in short-term therapy in Las Vegas.

But Randy needed more, and Nevada doesn't offer long-term care.

The youngster was sent to the Brown Schools' San Antonio treatment center, Laurel Ridge, which was supposed to correct his hyperactivity and behavioral problems. According to court documents filed by a lawyer for the boy's mother, Randy was restrained at least 25 times in less than 28 days.

He died after the last one in February 2000, after orderlies physically restrained the boy, who had launched into a toy-tossing temper tantrum after refusing to take a bath. According to court records, the orderlies held Randy chest-down until he began to wheeze and vomit. They then turned him on his side and realized that Randy had lost his pulse.

No criminal charges were filed in the case. The DPRS did not cite Laurel Ridge for any violations. And Randy's mother never learned the details of what really happened that night.

Like other families who have lost children this way, Randy's mother, Holly, turned to the civil courts. The case was headed for a jury in
October.

"The day we were supposed to start trial, the Moody incident happened," Holly Steele said. A few months later, she settled the suit with Brown outside of court for an undisclosed amount.

The district attorney in charge of Mason County, Ron Sutton, is considering prosecution of the Brown Schools. If that happens, advocates
would consider it a legal breakthrough in restraint cases.

Sutton has said he plans to take the case to a grand jury within the next few weeks.

In the past, grand juries have been reluctant to go after staff members for their role in restraint-related deaths. For example, a grand jury earlier this year declined to indict staff workers involved in the restraint-related death of Maria Mendoza, who died at the Katy facility
Oct. 12. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.

Contemplating charges against a company, however, is a legal move rarely attempted in these situations. It would, on the simplest terms, require Sutton to prove a pattern of dangerous and deadly behavior that continued right up until Chase's death.

If the law were different and a restraint-related death could clearly lead to criminal penalties, that at the very least might make some of
these facilities and their staffs think twice before taking another child to the ground, advocates say.

But in Texas, as is the case throughout the country, that is unlikely to change for the time being. On the night Chase died, Charles Moody fell asleep on the couch toward the end of the Monday night football game.

The phone rang shortly after midnight.

Since, Charles Moody has been searching for justice somewhere, somehow.

He's held meetings with prosecutors and legislators. He's even gone as far as hiring Cochran, the same lawyer who successfully defended O.J. Simpson, to potentially take civil action against the Brown Schools. And he's shared tearful embraces with other parents, such as Holly Steele, who have been through all this already.

What Moody knows all too well, though, is that this crusade will not bring Chase back.

"The main thing I want," Moody said at his Dallas law firm shortlyafter his son's death, "I can't have."

mwa-@statesman.com (http://mailto:mwa-@statesman.com); 445-1712

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on January 05, 2004, 05:28:00 PM

Mark Wardle does not and has not worked for SageWalk in many years!

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on January 06, 2004, 11:30:00 AM

sadly yet not too surprising that after a crimminal investigation - no charges in the Chase Moody death.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on August 04, 2004, 07:17:00 AM

Quote

On 2003-01-11 11:32:00, FaceKhan wrote:

"Considering the place like most fad treatment programs was falsely advertising its and its staffs qualification to treat kids in the first place, it should not even be a qestion as to what kind of restraint was used. Any restraint at these places should be considered assualt and deaths resulting from them should be considered felony murder (fraud and child abuse being the underlying crime) and the perpetrators should get a needle in their arm.
"

I went to On Track and was present when Chase died.  Call it a fad treatment program, call it what you will.  Wilderness programs have been around for a decent period of time and I know MANY MANY people they have helped, including myself.  I know On Track saved my life, because if I hadn't gone there because I was sent to a therapeutic boarding school where I learned more and which helped me further, I would have run away from the boarding school right away, stayed in denial, and stayed closed to receiving help, and done something stupid.  I would go back and do On Track all over again, if I could.  It was one of the most amazing and self-realizing experiences of my life.  The staff were very helpful and actually cared about me.  I know there are RTCs out there where the staff don't even care.  I'm just saying, take it easy on the bashing.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on August 04, 2004, 07:35:00 AM

OK SO IT WOULDN'T LET ME EDIT THE POST SO READ THIS ONE INSTEAD....

Quote

On 2003-01-11 11:32:00, FaceKhan wrote:

"Considering the place like most fad treatment programs was falsely advertising its and its staffs qualification to treat kids in the first place, it should not even be a qestion as to what kind of restraint was used. Any restraint at these places should be considered assualt and deaths resulting from them should be considered felony murder (fraud and child abuse being the underlying crime) and the perpetrators should get a needle in their arm.
"

I went to On Track and was present when Chase died.  Call it a fad treatment program, call it what you will.  Wilderness programs have been around for a decent period of time and I know MANY MANY people they have helped, including myself.  And the kids who are sent to these programs, yeah some don't have huge problems maybe they could have made it on their own, but I know a large amount of people who went through wilderness and therapeutic programs who would have died without them.  The programs slowed them down at least if not stopped their craziness (I guess it depends on the quality of the place they were sent to).  I know On Track saved my life, because if I hadn't gone there because I was sent to a therapeutic boarding school where I learned more and which helped me further, I would have run away from the boarding school right away, stayed in denial, and stayed closed to receiving help, and done something stupid.  When I left home, I was suicidal, using drugs including heroin, promiscuous, running away, violent, and all that good burnout junkie crap.  I would go back and do On Track all over again, if I could.  It was one of the most amazing and self-realizing experiences of my life.  The staff were very helpful and actually cared about me.  I know there are RTCs out there where the staff don't even care.  I've heard stories about CEDO from girls who have been there.  But most of the kids who get sent there are sent by parents who don't know where to go.  There are educational consultants who can help parents because most of them keep track of their students and therefore know which programs help and what a student would need.  So On Track wasn't perfect.  I can't say I'm a great advocate of the Brown Schools.  But they did save a number of lives, just like other wildernesses like SUWS, Sagewalk, Aspen, Catherine Freer, Second Nature, etc.  I'm just saying, take it easy on the bashing.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on August 04, 2004, 10:12:00 AM

How old are you anon?

How is it that you have come to be so very knowledgable about the industry? For a teen, which is what you sound like (a young one at that), you sure know alot about a number of programs, and all the program terms (ed cons, tbs, rtc, etc).

Which tbs did you attend?

Exactly how many people do you know that would have died without a program? I hope you realize that you are exaggerating, when you make that statement. Of course, death may have been a remote possiblity for any one of them, but what are the chances? Do you know what the statistics are? You might take that up as your next subject to research.

29 unnecessary deaths in wilderness. Another 16 in boot camps. It didn't save those kids lives, and chances are very good that they'd be alive today had they not attended a program. No form of therapy should include the risk of death.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on August 05, 2004, 02:40:00 PM

Quote

On 2004-08-04 07:12:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

How old are you anon?



How is it that you have come to be so very knowledgable about the industry? For a teen, which is what you sound like (a young one at that), you sure know alot about a number of programs, and all the program terms (ed cons, tbs, rtc, etc).



Which tbs did you attend?



Exactly how many people do you know that would have died without a program? I hope you realize that you are exaggerating, when you make that statement. Of course, death may have been a remote possiblity for any one of them, but what are the chances? Do you know what the statistics are? You might take that up as your next subject to research.



29 unnecessary deaths in wilderness. Another 16 in boot camps. It didn't save those kids lives, and chances are very good that they'd be alive today had they not attended a program. No form of therapy should include the risk of death.



"

I'm 18 and out of programs now.  I attended On Track and then a boarding school in Montana, Mission Mountain.  What I know is from personal experience.  Why are you so spiteful towards anybody who opposes your opinion?  You seem to be afraid to accept that programs can do some good.  I know that I would have died, or been as good as dead since nothing was left but my addiction, if I had not been sent to those programs.  I don't give a shit about statistics.  I have known these people of whom I speak, known what they've been through.  Many of my friends back home got into heroin, and that's not an addiction you can just up and quit, unless there's some sort of intervention.  And believe or not, drugs do kill people, if not directly, then through the whole lifestyle of crime, violence, promiscuity, etc.  Programs helped them.  I know one boy who was sent to a bad program because his parents didn't know what they were doing and he got more traumatized.  If people used the right resources, such as good educational consultants, those situations could be avoided.  I go to NA meetings and there are people there who know that if they don't stay sober, they're dead, such is the extent of their addiction.  Most of the girls I knew were going downhill so quickly that they would never have hit bottom before death.  Of course there were the ones who would have survived, unhappily or maybe just fine, without programs.  There's always the ambiguity of whether somebody needs help or not.  I know two people, childhood friends, who had problems that their parents knew about.  But their problems weren't taken care of in any way because they could manage to make a show of having a normal life.  And they were the most normal of people.  I know how that is.  I did it before I snapped and started methodically destroying myself through my lifestyle.  Each of them committed suicide.  I wonder, if they had gotten help, if people would have scoffed and said that it was useless, because nothing would have happened any way.

I am not exaggerating when I say myself and others would have died without being sent away to a program.  It is not something I can show you through statistics or describe to you in a post.  It is something I learned through experience and saw and knew.  How many people die from suicide, DUI, drug overdose, lung cancer, kidney cancer, alcohol poisoning, drug or sexually contracted HIV, murder - and yes, gangs members do murder people, etc.??  How many people are raped while living the party life which leaves them more vulnerable to it?  I knew people who had caused the deaths of others, directly or indirectly, caused their own deaths or very sincerely tried to, prostituted themselves, stole cars, pushed drugs to children...  and their parents, at the time of sending them away, knew none of this (except the ones that died, they were already dead and didn't have a chance for intervention) until they later in the course of the program confessed.  So maybe if they had died earlier at wilderness or something, people would have said, "They were fine without programs.  They would have been alive and contributing to society if they hadn't gone to programs."

I am NOT justifying those deaths.  I AM saying that to use those deaths to condemn all programs is not helpful, and may even be harmful.  Nobody ever knows the whole story.  You seem to have a personal vendetta against programs.  Sure, I didn't love them.  But I can recognize that they helped me.  There are programs that are more dangerous and damaging to children.  We need laws enforced to protect against those.  By all means, work to get this kind of legislation in place or enforced.  But there are also programs that do a world of good, even if I don't agree with every one of their practices.  They cannot be put in the same category.  And there are differences between a single incident and between a bad program.  In the On Track incident, I know the staff tried to help us all.  Maybe they were improperly trained.  The details are sketchy.  The Brown Schools are not the best.  So learn from it and go from there.  You claim to educate people.  That's a joke.  Do something productive.  You don't always have to be right.  Maybe this is futile, and I just wasted my time because you seem very biased, and biases don't just look at both sides of a matter.  Well this is my opinion.  You know what?  I just won't come back here, because there is no use.  If you must say something to me, this is my email.  Thanks for your time.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Deborah on August 05, 2004, 11:37:00 PM

Dang Dude,
Where did you grow up? Sounds like it was a rough neighborhood. Kinda like the barrio. According to my research Heroine is the least used drug among teens, a very small percentage. Were they all in your neighborhood? Just kidding.

Interesting, I was a teen at the height of the free love, sex, drugs, rock and roll era. Anything you could want was available.  There was pot and drugs at every teen venue I attended. I know no one that died from drug use or ?promiscuous? sex, not that I'm condoning that for you.

Yes, you are exaggerating, but I?m sure you don?t realize it.
2,416,425 deaths in 2001. In 2001 a total of 21,683 persons died of drug-induced causes.    That?s .009 of total deaths. If my math is correct, that?s 9 out of every 1,000 deaths due to drugs.
And, that includes ALL ages, and deaths due to legal drugs (medications) as well.
The number is so low that it doesn?t get a mention in the Top 20 causes of death.

Most teens die in auto accidents. Should we lock them up to prevent that? My hunch is that many parents do incarcerate their teens to deminsh their fears.

The number of deaths in Wilderness programs and Boot Camps since 1980 was 45. That?s 1.9 per year. If we add RTCs and other out-of-home placements that number exceeds 100. And, I know my list is not conclusive.

I spent several hours looking for statistics on teen deaths due to drugs. I couldn?t find any!! This site says 19,000 people, that?s all ages, and all drugs (legal and illegal)
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/drug_su ... atment.htm (http://www.helpguide.org/mental/drug_substance_abuse_addiction_signs_effects_treatment.htm)

Republican Policy Committee says  ?Thousands?
http://rpc.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1998/drugrise.htm (http://rpc.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1998/drugrise.htm)

Found nothing at NIDA, except reports stating that teen drug use is down.
http://www.nida.nih.gov/DrugPages/Stats.html (http://www.nida.nih.gov/DrugPages/Stats.html)

Found no death statistics at PDFA
http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/Home/def ... 1&grp=Home (http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/Home/default.asp?ws=PDFA&vol=1&grp=Home)

But, both NIDA and PDFA can provide you with up to the minute statistics on how many teens are supposedly USING/ABUSING drugs and how many emergency room visits there were, but no stats on deaths. I find this a bit curious.

I think Mike Males hits the nail on the head.
http://www.fair.org/extra/0011/teen-drug.html (http://www.fair.org/extra/0011/teen-drug.html)

Perhaps we should be waging a ?War on Prescription Drugs? ? The annual death toll from synthetic prescription drugs, both from the correctly prescribed and the incorrectly prescribed, amounts to about 231,000 deaths every year. To put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of a world trade center disaster every week for over a year and a half or the crash of two fully loaded 747 aircraft every day of the year.   http://www.heilkunst.com/drugs2.html (http://www.heilkunst.com/drugs2.html)

Well, that's almost 11 times more deaths due to ?legal? drugs than illegal.
Point being, the stats just don?t warrant the hysteria around this issue. An independent study in Tx recently revealed that kids were 5 times more likely to be hurt or killed in out-of-home placements. Those statistics are unacceptable. And we haven?t even broached the subject of mental/emotional abuse.

Just a word about Ed Cons. My son was placed (provided a referral) by an EC to a TBS she knew nothing about. It was a bad experience. My neighbor was referred to a Wilderness program by an Ed Con. Her son didn?t come home. He died. Pardon me if I sound like I have a vendetta. I could tell you a few more stories too.

You didn?t mention what your addiction was, but if it was as serious as you implied, a wilderness program doesn?t sound appropriate to me. Are they really equipped to deal with withdrawal symptoms?
As far as confessions go, I don?t consider confessions under duress to be true confessions.
Too many teens have told me they confessed to end the constant badgering.

You have a lot to learn. I?m glad you survived. Your drug ?addiction? AND your programs.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on August 06, 2004, 11:35:00 AM

Kid, you're counting *lung cancer* as one of the "deadorinjail" risks of not going to a program????

*Lung cancer*????!!!

Everybody dies of something.

Lung cancer is a rough way to go.

But as an adult you have a *lot* of years to make the choice, over and over, of whether you want to keep smoking or you want to quit.

I don't think anyone questions whether your friends that suicided needed "help" or whether you needed "help" if you were addicted to a psychoactive drug.

What most of us question is whether involuntary residential treatment was necessary and appropriate.

You say you go to NA meetings now.  Many of us would argue that NA would be the *first* thing to try *before* involuntary residential treatment.

It's not that all residential treatment is bad, or that residential treatment isn't sometimes necessary and helpful.

The Big Ethical Question is whether human beings with addictions or other mental health problems should be subjected to the highly restrictive treatment of involuntary commitment when there is no *imminent* danger of serious harm to self or others and there are effective outpatient treatments available.

In the case of criminal misbehavior, the Big Ethical Question is whether human beings should be subject to incarceration for months or years with not even the semblance of Due Process of Law.

If you *chose*, with fully informed consent, to enter a residential program for treatment of some mental health problem, or to help you learn some skills that would help you improve your behavior, I don't think anyone here would have the least little problem with that----as long as the place was safe, effective, and practiced truth in advertising.

If you stick someone with depression in a mental hospital against their will, yeah, you may keep them from committing suicide.  But if outpatient treatment would *also* have prevented them from committing suicide, and the risk was *not* imminent, does anybody have the right to force the  patient to be shut away in a mental ward instead of getting that effective outpatient care?

For adults, the ethical question has already *clearly* and *firmly* been decided---the answer our society has come to is a resounding NO.

Most of the people here *either* want, through education, to persuade parents to afford their children the same consideration of offering the least restrictive effective treatment available (as long as there's no imminent threat of violence to self or others), or to change the laws to ensure quality care, truth in advertising, and some sort of professional review as a balance against parental misjudgements----or both.

Almost nobody here is completely forever and always against residential treatment.

We just have various reasonable ethical concerns and are engaging in reasoned debate about when and how.

Deborah and I disagree on many things about the best treatment for certain mental health problems, but what we have in common with each other and most everyone here is that we think the ethical debate about involuntary commitment of minors, and truth in advertising, and quality of care, are all vitally important issues that responsible people of good will need to debate and discuss in the public arena of ideas so that whatever we as a society decide to do about these issues is the best choice possible for the present and future generations of individuals and their communities.

Please realize that there are enough programs that are not safe, that do not offer quality care, that do not offer Truth in Advertising, that this debate about ethics and standards is necessary.

Timoclea

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: nite owl on August 07, 2004, 07:09:00 AM

I JUST READ THE COMMENTARY HERE - WITH THE 18 YEAR OLD WHO CLAIMS TO HAVE BEEN A PATIENT - ALTHOUGH HE SOUNDS MORE LIKE AN EMPLOYEE OF THE PROGRAM.  I'VE SEEN MANY EMPLOYEES MASCARADE AS FORMER PATIENTS ON SURVIVOR AND OTHER SITES.  HE JUST SOUNDS LIKE ONE OF THOSE....SORRY, I DON'T BUY IT...

The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.


--William Osler

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on November 27, 2004, 06:34:00 AM

okay so i wasn't going to come back but i received an email about one of my posts. i'm not an employee and i'm not "he." i'm female. i sure as hell didn't want to be committed to a wilderness or boarding school. i fought it. but i wouldn't have come around myself. after two years of intense therapy i still have trouble and i left early. so maybe the numbers aren't high. fuck that. numbers don't take every aspect of life into consideration. it helped me. believe it or not teenagers don't always know what is best for them. i grew up in the rich suburbs of chicago. heroin got big with certain groups of kids in my town because pot shrooms and e were everyday, crystal meth was too hard to get and a couple kids started pushing it. i forget now what else i wanted to say. you can go ahead and be condescending to me. i know what i've been through and maybe i'm not perfect like you. plenty of my old friends went to outpatient or short rehabs and they didn't do anything but meet other drug users and dealers. they went to na because they were forced to and didn't get anything out of it. addicts are self-centered and feel omnipotent. if you go to meetings with that kind of mind set it's hard to take anything in or even start the first step. there's always people there who just get their card signed and leave. if  they have to sit through any of it they look half-asleep. fuck it this is pissing me off. and yes i have been to bad therapists, psychiatrists, mental health clinics, so i can tell the difference. i don't claim to be 100% right. so come on, pick away, you bitches. actually i appreciate people who try to give different perspectives and who do correct me as with the numbers. but also follow the law not the letter of the law, as in please listen to my meaning too... and it's just annoying how some of you seem as if you think you're always right. okay this is choppy and rambling and probably full of fallacies but maybe when it's not the middle of the night i'll write a decent argument for your consideration.                        anyway if somebody from on track who was a student or staffed around october 2002, email me if you want to. it's mischuvious@hotmail.com (yes i know it's not spelled correctly it was given to me as a nickname, so don't start).

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on March 30, 2005, 10:54:00 AM

Any word on this lawsuit? Who might be handling it since Cochran died? Is it even still happening or has it been dropped?

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on April 05, 2005, 04:01:00 PM

No word on who is handling the lawsuit...

But, the story was scheduled to be on Dateline NBC last week (the pope's worsening condition overtook the story), and is scheduled to be aired within the next few weeks.

The story will include Moody and Hadden (1988 death from improper restraint use to which Moody's father defended Brown Schools) and discussion of the case.

I pray all of this will bring peace to the families of these unfortunate victims who so unrightfully died in the hands of Brown Schools.


"

Any word on this lawsuit? Who might be handling it since Cochran died? Is it even still happening or has it been dropped?"
[/quote]

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: cherish wisdom on April 06, 2005, 12:02:00 PM

Hey I just re-read some of this. I think it's interesting to note that an estimated 300,000 people die from medication errors by their physicians, hospitals, pharmacies and so forth. There are many others who die as a result of drug abuse - The most abused drugs happen to be perscription drugs.  The worst drugs of all - responsible for the most deaths - Alcohol and Tar and Nicotine from cigarettes - are legal.  

I'd like to add that the only think that helped my daughter was AA - it's a great program and it's FREE.  To truly get cured from an addiction one must first WANT to and ADMIT they have a problem - this is the first step.  

To err is human; to forgive is simply not our policy.

 

-- MIT Assasination Club slogan

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on April 08, 2005, 10:28:00 AM

Cherish:

As I agree with you regarding AA and alcohol/drug abuse...Brandon Hadden's problem was unrelated to either of these.  He had a closed head injury and was recovering from that...not an abuse issue.  What happened to him was an illegal restraint...IT IS NEVER APPROPRIATE FOR AN INDIVIDUAL TO PIN SOMEONE DOWN FACE FIRST IN A RESTRAINT POSITION.  Also, there is NO WAY that any individual with any common sense cannot notice that a patient is vomiting and/or aspirating!  As a healthcare administrator...these two deaths make no sense and would not be tolerated at my facility or in my state.  

Also, 300,000 people dying from medication errors per year is significantly higher than the "actual" number.  The 300,000 deaths you are referring to DID have medication errors at some time during their stay...but, by no means, did a medication error contribute to this many deaths.  This statistic is inaccurate...A death as a result of a direct medication error is termed a "Sentinel Event" and is monitored EXTREMELY close by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and state agencies.  You can obtain factual numbers regarding med errors from their statistics.  Hope all of this helps clarify these issues.  Thanks.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on April 08, 2005, 11:10:00 AM

http://www.drugintel.com/pharma/iatroge ... _death.htm (http://www.drugintel.com/pharma/iatrogenic_causes_of_death.htm)

The number of deaths each year due to non-error adverse reactions to medications adverse reactions is greater than the number of deaths of American military personnel in the entire Viet Nam war.

Deaths/Yr and Cause
7,000 Medication Errors in Hospitals
12,000 Unnecessary Surgery
20,000 Medical Errors in Hospitals (excluding Medication Errors)
106,000 Non-error, Adverse Reactions to Medications aka Drug Adverse Events
Total: 145,000

48 Times more people killed ANNUALLY than were killed on 911, and these mad scientists are still heralded as heroes.

Many are treated... few are healed:
http://www.drugintel.com/pharma/many_are_treated.htm (http://www.drugintel.com/pharma/many_are_treated.htm)
Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them.

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... =100#72562 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=6657&forum=9&start=100#72562)

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on April 08, 2005, 11:57:00 AM

Quote

On 2004-11-27 03:34:00, Anonymous wrote:

"okay so i wasn't going to come back but i received an email about one of my posts. i'm not an employee and i'm not "he." i'm female. i sure as hell didn't want to be committed to a wilderness or boarding school. i fought it. but i wouldn't have come around myself. after two years of intense therapy i still have trouble and i left early. so maybe the numbers aren't high. fuck that. numbers don't take every aspect of life into consideration. it helped me. believe it or not teenagers don't always know what is best for them. i grew up in the rich suburbs of chicago. heroin got big with certain groups of kids in my town because pot shrooms and e were everyday, crystal meth was too hard to get and a couple kids started pushing it. i forget now what else i wanted to say. you can go ahead and be condescending to me. i know what i've been through and maybe i'm not perfect like you. plenty of my old friends went to outpatient or short rehabs and they didn't do anything but meet other drug users and dealers. they went to na because they were forced to and didn't get anything out of it. addicts are self-centered and feel omnipotent. if you go to meetings with that kind of mind set it's hard to take anything in or even start the first step. there's always people there who just get their card signed and leave. if  they have to sit through any of it they look half-asleep. fuck it this is pissing me off. and yes i have been to bad therapists, psychiatrists, mental health clinics, so i can tell the difference. i don't claim to be 100% right. so come on, pick away, you bitches. actually i appreciate people who try to give different perspectives and who do correct me as with the numbers. but also follow the law not the letter of the law, as in please listen to my meaning too... and it's just annoying how some of you seem as if you think you're always right. okay this is choppy and rambling and probably full of fallacies but maybe when it's not the middle of the night i'll write a decent argument for your consideration.                        anyway if somebody from on track who was a student or staffed around october 2002, email me if you want to. it's mischuvious@hotmail.com (yes i know it's not spelled correctly it was given to me as a nickname, so don't start)."

Look, chick***, if you are a heroin addict and were actively using, that is one of the situations that I personally consider "imminent danger" of harm to self or others and believe justifies involuntary commitment---in children or adults.

I believe everyone with a mental illness should get quality care, in the least restrictive, effective setting.

Addiction to certain drugs that are extremely, immediately dangerous (like heroin) is a no-brainer, to me, as grounds for involuntary commitment.

I'm not an expert on heroin addiction, so I can't make informed judgments between methadone and other treatment protocols--at the same time, I'm not going to form an opinion on that based on others' judgments either, because there's a lot of crap out there on issues of addiction.  So for right now, the exact methods of treatment for that, are, for me, in my "I don't know" box.

But what I do know is that the risk for fatal overdose for a using heroin addict is high, and imminent--which puts it in the "involuntary commitment okay" category for me.

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

If you're a recovering heroin addict, I'm not surprised that you sing the praises off whatever got you to stop using heroin.  You'd be weird if you *weren't* singing its praises.

And yes, I "get" that you want oversight and quality care, too.

You're on the same page as most of the rest of us, you're just looking at the problem from a different angle.

*My* angle is that I have a hereditary mental illness, and various combinations of those genes affect most of my family to various degrees, and I really want the care out there to be quality care because there's a much higher likelihood for my loved ones ending up voluntarily using it or stuck with it than there is for most people.

The angle of most other people on Fornits is they got stuck in involuntary lockdown facilities when they didn't need to be there---either didn't have anything that needed treatment or outpatient would have done---and got permanently harmed by bad, incompetent, unscrupulous providers.  Providers who might better be described as perpetrators.

And yet almost all of them will still come out and say, just like you say that treatment has to be safeguarded and high quality for those who need it, they say that safeguarded and high quality treatment needs to be available for people who really do need to be committed.  And they readily allow that anyone who is in imminent danger of harming themselves or others--real danger, not just made up danger---needs to be and should be involuntarily committed.

Ginger's uncensored "town square" philosophy is good because it makes sure every opinion gets its advocates on here taking our best shots at communicating our thoughts.  Its drawback is that it means there are trolls.  

The rest of us try to ignore the trolls (like the one who said you aren't a real person).  You'll be happier if you choose to ignore them, too, but that's up to you.

Deborah pointed out, rightly, that any facility dealing with heroine addicts needs to be able to handle withdrawal symptoms safely.  She never said heroin addicts don't need immediate, high-quality treatment, even if that treatment is involuntary.

I think the best way to look at this is that you, and me, and the other non-trolling people on Fornits, all want pretty much the same thing.  We all want the people who need involuntary commitment involuntarily committed, the people who can benefit from voluntary commitment allowed to choose for themselves, and the care the facilities provide to be high-quality and ethical and properly overseen by the authorities.

Your emphasis is on getting the people who need involuntary commitment into it.  My emphasis is on making sure the bad providers are taken out of the provider pool.  Their emphasis is making sure that people who don't need to be involuntarily committed never, ever are.

But from our different backgrounds and the different aspects of the solutions we emphasize, you and me and the others on Fornits all want pretty much the same thing.

Are they biased?  Yes, of course.  They're biased towards preventing people who don't need care from being harmed by involuntary "care."  They're trying to prevent bad stuff that happened to them from happening to others.

Am I biased?  Yes, of course.  I'm biased towards seeing the beds in the facilities are kept available for people who really may need them---like those of us with serious mental illnesses.  I'm biased towards making sure that instead of providing fake care to people who don't need it and dragging people who need real care into the fake care, disastrously for them, with their deceptive little marketing nets---making sure that the facilities advertising to parents of kids with serious mental illnesses are providing the right care, quality care, to our kids when and if they need that care.

Are you biased?  Yes, of course.  You're biased towards seeing that care is available and high quality for people like yourself who get addicted to seriously, immediately dangerous drugs and really need involuntary care to get them off those drugs before the drugs (like heroin) kill them.

We're all vulnerable to, when we're not paying close attention, talking as if our particular interest was a bigger part of the whole teen facility situation than it is.

Particularly when we get excited.

You are.  I am.  The survivors of bad care who are on Fornits---the ones who didn't need to be committed at all---are also.

None of us can help that.

What we can try to do--not always successfully---is keep our tempers and recognize that we all really want the same thing, we're just coming at the problem from different perspectives.

I'm saying don't get bent out of shape, if you can help it, by what you see as other people's biases, and don't make the mistake of thinking they're out to deprive people like you of care.  They're not.

Just recognize that like all of us, you have biases yourself and the rest of us are as likely, if we're in a hurry, to read too much into your biases as you are to read too much into ours.

And don't take this as me being higher-than-thou Moses on the Mountain like I'm perfect---because I know I'm not.  I lose my temper on here sometimes, and I sometimes read too much into the words of other people coming from other directions on this issue.  You didn't lose your temper, but I think you are, inadvertently, reading too much in.

Timoclea
***chick--please don't get offended that I called you chick.  I call all unnamed females chick and all unnamed males dude.  It's not meant to diminish or disrespect you.  If you find it annoying, please just give me something else to call you---it need not be your real name, just something to call you that doesn't offend you.  Thanks.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on April 09, 2005, 03:16:00 PM

I believe everyone with a mental illness should get quality care, in the least restrictive, effective setting.





If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.


<





The angle of most other people on Fornits is they got stuck in involuntary lockdown facilities when they didn't need to be there---either didn't have anything that needed treatment or outpatient would have done---and got permanently harmed by bad, incompetent, unscrupulous providers.  Providers who might better be described as perpetrators.



And yet almost all of them will still come out and say, just like you say that treatment has to be safeguarded and high quality for those who need it, they say that safeguarded and high quality treatment needs to be available for people who really do need to be committed.  And they readily allow that anyone who is in imminent danger of harming themselves or others--real danger, not just made up danger---needs to be and should be involuntarily committed.



Let your county mental health boards know what is needed and the high human cost of not having services available to keep kids in their homes.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on August 04, 2005, 02:57:00 AM

Considering the place like most fad treatment programs was falsely advertising its and its staffs qualification to treat kids in the first place, it should not even be a qestion as to what kind of restraint was used. Any restraint at these places should be considered assualt and deaths resulting from them should be considered felony murder (fraud and child abuse being the underlying crime) and the perpetrators should get a needle in their arm.


I totally agree!  These camps use cruel physical and mental techniques disguised as therapy.  I am not surprised this child acted out in anger (most likely fear).Most human beings undergoing this kind of physical and mental punishment would respond in this manner.  The camps bring on these incidents and then want to blame them on the child's previous problems.  The people running these camps should also be held accountable.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on August 31, 2005, 10:08:00 PM

My child was at the On Track Camp during the time of Chase's death.  He was either in the same tent or the adjoining tent I just can't be sure now.  I came to get him the next week once I was informed of the incident.  Although my child was not deposed (as far as I know) for the lawsuit I am curious if there was ever a resolution. As stated earlier I got my son out and moved to another state to finish school.  Any help will be appreciated.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Deborah on August 31, 2005, 10:40:00 PM

Welcome.
Basically Moody decided to settle, which appears to have been a factor in Brown filing bankruptcy. Bought a farm in Tennessee and moved on with his life.
Transcript of a recent Dateline report in this thread
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... t=0#119914 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=11041&forum=9&start=0#119914)

There is other info here about On Track and Brown Schools. Use the Search WWF function and type in Moody, On Track, or Brown. Lots to read.

How's your son? I always wonder what impact one of these tragic deaths has on the other kids in the program, particularly the ones who witness it.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Verbal Razors on September 04, 2005, 05:47:00 PM

Quote

On 2003-02-05 20:46:00, Anonymous wrote:

"I am Chase Moody's sister, and I do not appreciate what you are posting on this site.  Your facts are clearly not correct.  I ask that you refrain from posting more about my brother without my family's permission or the correct facts.  You should not make your opinion on a tragic issue public.  You know nothing about what happened and your insight is NOT appreciated!"

Your brother is a fucking child killer. People will post whatever they like. Now kindly fuck off

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Verbal Razors on September 04, 2005, 05:53:00 PM

"Many of my friends back home got into heroin, and that's not an addiction you can just up and quit, unless there's some sort of intervention. "

I did. Again, you are a child that knows nothing..and brainwashed to boot..Now run along and study for your GED

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Verbal Razors on September 04, 2005, 05:59:00 PM

"fuck it this is pissing me off. and yes i have been to bad therapists, psychiatrists, mental health clinics, so i can tell the difference. i don't claim to be 100% right. so come on, pick away, you bitches. actually i appreciate people who try to give different perspectives and who do correct me as with the numbers. but also follow the law not the letter of the law, as in please listen to my meaning too"

Wow you are fucking stupid..you contradict yourself with every other sentence..And I doubt youd know a real drug problem if it hit you in the face.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on September 09, 2005, 07:50:00 AM

Quote

On 2005-09-04 14:47:00, Verbal Razors wrote:

"

Quote

On 2003-02-05 20:46:00, Anonymous wrote:


"I am Chase Moody's sister, and I do not appreciate what you are posting on this site.  Your facts are clearly not correct.  I ask that you refrain from posting more about my brother without my family's permission or the correct facts.  You should not make your opinion on a tragic issue public.  You know nothing about what happened and your insight is NOT appreciated!"

Your brother is a fucking child killer. People will post whatever they like. Now kindly fuck off
"

Im sorry , I can't help but be entirely confused ? That post was suposedly made by the sister of the  teen who died. How would her brother be a child killer  if he is the child who died ? Or did I miss something?

Reading comprehension is very important in these discussions.

Title: Death in Texas at "On Track" Wilderness
Post by: Anonymous on May 19, 2006, 12:57:00 AM

Stripped of your legal rights, harrassed, or under a satanic attack, then U have come to the right place. Have you or your loved ones been victimized by a state agency? Have the state lied on you and falsified records? Have your privacy been violated? The purpose of this group is to expose the corruption within the Department of Human Services, Child Protective Services, and Mental Health Services. Are you aware that DHS is the third largest department in the U.S. federal government after the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs? DHS consist of 180,000 employees. CPS is a division of DHS. The enemy have built his empire right here on earth. CPS are nothing more than state kidnappers. This country is ranned by a luciferian government and it's all legal. They are all in it together, an Army of one. This group allows you to vent your fustration by sharing your story. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChildProt ... orruption/ (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChildProtectiveServices_Corruption/)

Group Moderator

Title: Risk's of restraint!
Post by: Anonymous on March 01, 2007, 09:03:04 PM

dear veiwer i am founder and prisident of a group called
"RISK'S OF RESTRAINT. That centers areound teens and small childen who have died do to restraint.  
If you would like more information on restraint and the facts
then go to this website.
www.reason55.co.nr (http://www.reason55.co.nr)

If you are really intrested and would like to become
a member of my group please email me at restraint_kills@yahoo.com