Angellika Arndt was seven years old when she died at a Wisconsin day treatment center in 2006. She had been in a prone restraint control hold, where she lay face-down on the floor with one person lying across her legs and another lying sideways across her lower back, for twenty-three minutes when she stopped struggling. At first, the clinic staff thought she had fallen asleep, which she often did after being restrained, but when after five minutes she hadn't moved, they found her lips had turned blue. Arndt was taken to the hospital, but died the next day.
Disability Rights Wisconsin released a report on Arndt's death last week that describes not only what happened the day she died, but her entire history at the clinic. On the first day she was admitted that April, she spent five hours either in seclusion or in restraints. During the month she spent at the clinic, she spent at least 14 hours restrained and 20 hours locked in "time-out" rooms. Many of her restraint sessions were more than two hours long.
In the two and a half years since the incident, a lot has changed. The facility in which Arndt was killed was closed down after the Department of Health Services rejected its plans to ensure incidents like this wouldn't happen again, and the organization that owned it fined $100,000. When Arndt's death was ruled a homicide, the man who restrained her that day was sentenced to 60 days in jail.
While DRW is pleased about the changes that have been enacted, they are pushing for one more change to occur. There is no ban on prone restraint in Wisconsin, even after Arndt's death, because the state department of health argues that restraint is often warranted and necessary for the safety of health workers. Karen Timberlake, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, stated that "[the] department will continue to work with our partners to issue additional guidance on the dangers of the use of seclusion and restraint."
Disability Rights Wisconsin and the Coalition Against Institutionalized Child Abuse, however, allege that Arndt was restrained for offenses such as blowing bubbles in her milk and not sitting still in time-out and that a blanket ban of prone restraint is necessary to prevent further abuse. They worry that it will take another death to enact a restraint ban.
Disaboomers: Is a blanket ban on restraint such as Angellika Arndt faced necessary, or do you think shutting down the clinic where it happened and encouraging alternatives to control holds is enough? Are control measures that risk the life of the person being controlled ever justified?
(Related: North Carolina man strapped face-down to bed, left alone for an hour)
