Hospital released ‘violent’ patient, then he attacked woman with rock, OR lawsuit says
A woman is suing a hospital facility after she was attacked with a rock and knocked unconscious by a “violent” patient who had been released earlier that day, according to a complaint filed in Oregon.
The attack left her with a “severe concussion,” and she has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and is on long-term disability, according to the lawsuit.
The hospital should not have released the patient, who had been seen at a behavioral health center after a “violent mental health crisis”, according to the lawsuit. Hospital staff should have known that the patient, who had been charged with second-degree criminal mischief days earlier, required further care and posed a danger to the public, the complaint says.
A spokesperson for Legacy Health, the hospital system that partners with Unity Center for Behavioral Health where the patient had been seen, declined to comment on the pending litigation.
The attack
Sonya Gonzales was waiting for her son to pick her up after she left work at Legacy Research Institute’s Holladay Park Campus in Portland at around 4:30 p.m. Aug. 9, 2022, the complaint says.
A man wearing scrubs approached her and struck her in the head with a large rock, the complaint says. She fell to the ground, hitting her head on the concrete, and was knocked unconscious.
“She lay unconscious on the ground, bleeding from the wounds to her skull for several minutes,” the complaint says.
When she regained consciousness, she struggled to her feet and went back inside the building, according to the lawsuit. She asked various people for help until the hospital’s security staff called police and paramedics, who brought her to Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center.
The attack left her with a facial contusion and a severe concussion, and she needed to have 10 staples in her skull, the complaint says. She has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and is on long-term disability.
The man was charged with attempt to commit a Class A felony, second-degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon, according to Oregon court records. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the court is evaluating his mental fitness to proceed, according to court records. His attorney declined to comment.
The hospital’s responsibility
The lawsuit alleges that Legacy Health was aware of violent crimes being committed in the area around Unity Center for Behavioral Health as well as the danger the patient they released posed to the public.
The man had a “violent mental health crisis” on July 24 and threatened to assault a woman and “bash her skull in” in the vicinity of Legacy Emanuel Hospital and Health Center, the lawsuit says.
Police officers brought him to the hospital where medical staff determined he expressed “homicidal ideation and impulses,” the complaint says. He was later discharged.
On Aug. 4, days before the attack on Gonzales, he shattered the windshields of a parked car and told a gas station attendant that “he was hearing voices that were telling him to kill everyone,” the complaint says.
He was charged with two counts of second-degree criminal mischief in connection to that incident, according to Oregon court records.
Staff at Unity Center for Behavioral Health saw the man as a patient again on Aug. 9 and “learned of additional information indicating that (he) posed a danger of violence to others,” the complaint says. They discharged the man “despite his continued need for medical and/or mental health care services and the risk of danger he posed to people,” the complaint says. Later that day, he would hit Gonzales in the head with a rock.
In addition to “unreasonably and improperly discharging” the patient, the lawsuit says the health center’s negligence allowed the attack to occur, claiming the company failed “to undertake reasonable security measures” and failed “to have sufficient security personnel on premises” among other security and policy lapses, according to the complaint.
Since the attack on Gonzales, she has had to pay many expenses, taken leave from her job and has suffered emotional distress, according to the lawsuit.
Lawyers are seeking damages of around $1 million for her expenses, which include future counseling, lost earnings and lost future earning capacity, the complaint says. They are also seeking $3 million for her pain and suffering, which includes “fear, depression, anxiety, isolation, nightmares, sleep disruption (and) mistrust in the intentions of others,” the complaint says.
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