Troubling Incidents Beset Hospital
A young man apparently troubled by a psychotic experience and brought voluntarily to Mission Hospital Laguna Beach for evaluation, escaped the emergency room at 2:57 a.m. last Friday, Aug. 28, setting off an unsuccessful search by Laguna Beach police.
Eight hours later, sheriff's deputies in Dana Point arrested Lucas Marshall Forte for robbery, burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon, a sheriff's spokesman said Thursday. The 21-year-old from Laguna Niguel remains in custody.
The following day, on Aug. 29 at 9:27 p.m., an unidentified woman with a history of seizures and psychiatric problems also was reported missing by hospital officials, according to the police log.
The "walk away" incidents come two weeks after a suicidal Dana Point man hanged himself in the hospital's ER and raises questions about the facility's staffing and supervision under new ownership by St. Joseph Health Systems.
Paula Serios, a Mission Hospital spokeswoman, said ER staffing levels during the suicide as well as during Forte's stay were in compliance with state and federal staffing regulations for a community hospital emergency room. Even so, under Mission, 100 fewer workers staff the Laguna campus, now at 310 employees.
Due to confidentiality rules governing an internal hospital investigation, begun in the wake of last month's suicide, Serios declined a request for records of the level of overnight activity in the ER on Aug. 13 when John D. Stewart, 51, used plastic tubing to hang himself.
The parents of Lucas Forte are also asking questions. "Things got worse because he fled," said the young man's mother, Valerie, who declined to provide details about her son's admittance to the hospital or his arrest later.
According to the log of Laguna Beach police, who were called to help look for the patient who escaped in a hospital gown, Forte was apparently experiencing hallucinations, but was not suicidal or taking medications. He was brought in by his father on a selfcommittal, the log said.
"He was supposed to stay the night," Mrs. Forte said, and undergo an evaluation the next morning. "He's in jail. We're in the very early stages of a complicated matter," she said, though her son's legal problems take precedent over questions about patient endangerment. She has hired a criminal lawyer.
Serios described Forte's circumstances as an "elopement," those who flee the ER after registration that have been assessed and determined that they could be of harm to themselves or others.
"Since our ownership of Mission Hospital Laguna Beach on July 1, there have been no patients placed on psychiatric hold that have eloped from the hospital ER," said Serios said.
