Involuntary Psychiatric Holds

Involuntary psychiatric holds.  Everyone's heard about these. Everyone calls 'em something different.  We call them IPHs, and they frequently start out as as general "psychiatric emergency" calls.  Out in California they're called 5150s, and down in Florida they use the Baker Act.  Here we just call them what they are.  Maybe that makes us weird.

Anyway, while statutes vary across the country, these holds generally allow law enforcement officers and qualified medical responders to involuntarily hold a patient for a specified amount of time (typically 3 days) for a mental health evaluation.  This is most commonly done for someone who is a grave danger to themselves (suicidal) or others (homicidal), and our goal is to get the patient into a mental health facility and get them the treatment they need.

So my partner and I respond to a busy downtown intersection to assist Fairview PD with a delusional subject.  We arrive to find a homeless 50 year old woman crying for help finding "Rebecca."  The officers reported that the woman had been walking aimlessly in traffic lanes, looking for her daughter.  They knew the patient from prior contacts, and knew that her daughter had been struck and killed by a drunk driver in the area some years before.  While the woman had been jaywalking and inciting gridlock, she obviously didn't need a ticket for that.  She needed some psychiatric help.  She had become an alcoholic after her daughter's death, and eventually lost her home.  While she had been homeless for some time, she never caused any trouble, and the delusions and/or desperation were new.

We make patient contact, and explain that the officers wanted her to get the help she needed.  As a diabetic alcoholic, she needed medical clearance prior to getting psychiatric help.  We explained that we were there to help, and she agreed to go with us.  The woman admitted to suicidal tendencies, and the officers handed us the IPH form.

As we loaded her up, she became hysterical and resumed yelling for Rebecca.  We applied soft restraints to keep her from flailing around too much.  While she wasn't intentionally violent, that's no small consolation when you get accidentally smacked all the way to the hospital.  We talked her down a bit and addressed her concerns about the IPH to her satisfaction, and she rested comfortably as we initiated transport to the hospital.

I asked her if I could get her ID out of her bag, and she gave me permission to rummage through the large backpack that contained most of her earthly possessions.

"Just don't steal my $15,000 dollars," she added.

Right. $15,000?

So I started going through her backpack, and couldn't find the ID.  When I asked her where it was, she said it was in a manila envelope with her money.  I quickly located the manila envelope and undid the clasp.

Sure enough, there was her ID.

Right on top of a large quantity of cash.

Now, I'm no banker, but I'd bet a good chunk of my next paycheck that it was right around fifteen grand.  This poor lady had lost her daughter to a drunk, and then her job, her house, and almost everything else she had to her own alcoholism.  But she had it together enough to carefully manage and account for 15Gs in cash as she slowly drank away what was left of her former life.

We dropped her off at the hospital fifteen minutes later, and she thanked us profusely for helping her.  She offered my partner and I some money for helping her, which we politely but firmly refused.  She was pretty pushy about it, but in the end seemed satisfied that we wouldn't take a penny from her for doing our jobs.

We never saw her again, and I really hope that the psych unit was a good place for her to get some help.  It still amazes me that this woman had more money in one envelope than I've ever had in my bank account at one time.

No matter how many calls I run, I never cease to be amazed by what I see...