No consequences for the guy, of course.
No consequences for the guy, of course.
My buddy got arrested, restrained to a hospital bed against his will, was given a cocktail of drugs, and had to stay there multiple days while getting a 'wellness check' every fifteen minutes where a nurse shakes you awake.
To top it all off they sent him home with a $60,000 medical bill.
Not a great way to treat someone who's going through a hard time. I definitely learned never to call the police unless someone is literally getting ready to jump off a building.
The way people are treated by the police is actually cruel. If you dug into it you would be ill.
This is an important lesson. Do not call the police unless you literally just want them to remove a nuisance and you don't care what happens to the person or how they are dealt with. Even then, police are just a wild card with the potential for life altering outcomes.
My brother called the police once because his then girlfriend was acting really crazy/violent after a night out drinking (not the first time) and they almost arrested HIM.
Actually, speaking of practices that are implemented for the convenience of administrators rather than the benefit of the patient...
There is a popular belief that, if you have a head injury, you must stay awake because losing consciousness is dangerous. This is completely false. Your urge to sleep reflects the fact that that is what's healthiest for you. If (1) you are caring for someone with a head injury, (2) they want to sleep, and (3) you have no means of addressing a very serious problem such as massive internal bleeding, you should let them sleep, because that is their best chance to recover.
It is, however, absolutely true that, if you have a head injury, 911 will tell whoever is caring for you to make sure that you remain conscious, and if you're already in a hospital, the staff will do their best to ensure you remain conscious. This is not because staying conscious is good for you. It is because they are relying on an index of how severe your injury is ("is he behaving oddly?") which only applies if you're conscious. Everyone who's unconscious is behaving normally.
If it's inconvenient to you then you always have the option of checking out of the hospital whenever you want: you are always (except in psychiatric hold cases) able to sign a form saying you understand it may be Against Medical Advice and want to leave.
There are other ways; they are more expensive, less accurate, and possibly more dangerous to the patient, but they exist.
But if you go back and read my comment again, you'll see that I'm talking about the popular belief that losing consciousness is detrimental to the patient. It isn't; it is beneficial. The doctor may have good reason to keep the patient awake anyway, because, if the patient suddenly starts to die, he might be able to do something about it.
But if you are not in that situation -- if there's nothing you can do if your injured friend suddenly starts to die -- then you should not be trying to keep your friend awake.
This is where calls for defunding the police come in. Take some of the money spent on using physical force on those whose thoughts do not conform to social norms and use it on a more appropriate agency. We no longer regularly physically restrain and torture the mentally ill in treatment settings. Why do we insist on funding other institutions to do so?