Patient left blind after roommate ripped out his eyes at Broward psychiatric hospital: cops
A patient at a psychiatric hospital in South Florida brutally beat up a roommate for about seven minutes and ripped the man’s eyes out of his sockets — leaving him permanently blind, police said Monday.
“The victim is permanently blind due to his injuries,” Pembroke Pines police spokeswoman Amanda Conwell told the Miami Herald.
The Florida Department of Children and Families, which selected Wellpath Recovery Solutions in 1998 to operate South Florida State Hospital, a 350-bed state psychiatric hospital in Pembroke Pines, announced on Wednesday that it will look into what happened.
“The Department has mandatory requirements to ensure the safety of patients who are receiving treatment services from our contracted vendors,” DCF spokeswoman Anna Archambault told the Herald in an email. “These events, while unfortunate, are a rare occurrence, and the Department will be launching an investigation into this incident as this provider has a contract with the Department to deliver and carryout these treatment services.”
Wellpath, a provider of medical and mental healthcare services in jails, prisons and hospitals across several states, hadn’t responded to the Herald’s multiple requests for comment as of Wednesday afternoon.
The hospital’s patients, the company’s website says, consists primarily of “severely and persistently mentally ill adults who are involuntarily committed to the hospital when community treatment alternatives are no longer effective.”
At around 4:45 p.m. Friday, Pembroke Pines officers responded to South Florida State Hospital, 800 East Cypress Drive, following a 911 call about an altercation between two patients, authorities said in the suspect’s arrest report. Police noted they weren’t notified until about an hour after the attack, which began at 3:47 p.m. — and that the hospital staff had started to clean the crime scene when the facility’s chief of staff told them to stop.
A review of the hospital’s security footage revealed the suspect and his bunkmate, who are both adults court ordered to be at the facility, were involved in an argument over a towel hanging on the door that turned physical, police said. The Herald is not identifying the suspect because of the sensitive nature of the incident.
“The suspect punched the victim in the face and then dragged him onto the ground,” police said in a news release. “Once on the ground, the suspect continued to punch the victim and eventually, the suspect pulled both of the victim’s eyes out of his eye-sockets.”
Police said that another patient walking by saw what was going on and alerted hospital staff approximately seven minutes into the attack. Officers added in the arrest report that the nurses at the psychiatric hospital put the man’s eyes on ice.
Paramedics arrived at the mental health facility at 4:03 p.m. and took the victim — and his eyes — to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, where he remained hospitalized as of Monday afternoon
“It was determined by the hospital that the victim has permanent loss of sight in both eyes and the eyes provided could not be re-attached,” officers wrote in the police report.
The suspect was taken on a charge of aggravated battery to Broward Sheriff’s Office Main Jail. He has since then been transferred to the North Broward Bureau where he remained as of Wednesday afternoon.
Not the first attack at South Florida State Hospital?
The brutal attack Friday wasn’t the first one between patients at South Florida State Hospital in recent years, police records reveal.
A little over a year ago, Sept. 13, one of the facility’s patients violently punched and stomped his bunkmate — who was found by a staff member covered in blood during a routine morning check, investigators said. The victim died three days following the attack after suffering from brain bleed, lung swelling, lacerated liver and spleen, an eye fracture and a sinus wall hemorrhage.
In June, the suspect’s murder case was transferred from Broward court’s criminal division to its mental health division because he was deemed incompetent to proceed, records show. His next court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 10.
This story was originally published September 25, 2023 at 5:30 PM.
