Restrained Autistic Student dies on bus

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And your position is hopeful and progressive? It doesn't really matter. One cannot administrate life.

It isn't a question of what is hopeful, but rather what may result in improvements.

It's impossible to regulate every detail of life, but we have governments and administrative authorities of many kinds precisely because it is possible to administrate some aspects of life.

Human societies don't let people drive without demonstrating ability and understanding through the licensing process.

Human societies don't let people perform medical services without training and certification.

Human societies don't let people perform technically skilled activity of most kinds without some kind of licensing and regulation.

Almost all of the regulatory and administrative bodies that have been created look at the safety of participants in the regulated activity as an important part of their duty and try to improve safety in light of lessons learned from incidents resulting in injury or death.

There is no rational reason to think that care of special needs students should be excluded from this general pattern.

Maybe there is nothing better the people who killed this student could have done and this is just one of those tragic things that happens, but there is no reason to conclude that before the autopsy and before the investigations by coroners, police and the school.

Here's a tale of a simple fatal accident where everyone was following existing rules and no one was morally wrong, but the investigation resulted in systemic changes that have improved safety for everyone and certainly saved many lives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE3w7rx1_1o

The point is that it is sometimes possible to analyze a bad situation, gain knowledge about how things go wrong and design new procedures that reduce the risk of things going wrong in that way again. That's part of how professions get better over time.

To a certain degree, we can and do. What is your view? That it is just too much time, money and effort to prevent injuries and deaths of flawed people?

I don't see any reason to assume that prescribed precautions weren't taken with this kid. Maybe they can improve on them, but I doubt there's much new ground to be covered regarding restraint holds.

There is just not enough information in this case to make a judgment. While there may not be much new to add in restraining technology and methodology we do not know if that particular school district uses best practices, so they may need to improve.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 21 Dec 2016, 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't know what you are basing this on.

This seems to be an active topic of debate with many professional organization advocating against the use of prone restraint because of the inherent risk of positional asphyxiation that comes with it and the availability of less risky and equally effective alternatives. I am no expert in this, nor would I pretend to any deep knowledge of it, but casual googling reveals that this is not just accepted standard practice and that there is good reason to think that the possibility exists that alternatives should have been used in this case:

https://www.nursingtimes.net/roles/ment ... 21.article


http://www.crisisconsultantgroup.com/cr ... restraint/



https://www.crisisprevention.com/Resour ... -Restraint


Maybe this student did not need to die. Maybe the results of this investigation will show that.

I don't understand why so much sympathy and bend-over-backwards clemency is being given to someone whose own violent behaviour led to his death. Violence is not acceptable. Personally if someone's violence cannot be controlled by the patient, I would advise using chemical alternatives, with or without the person's consent.

He died at age 18. That often causes people to be sympathetic.

Unless a medical condition contributed to his death deadly violence was used on him.

So you're totally going to give him a pass for his own behaviour? I hope you realize that does nothing to empower autistic people.

Give him a pass for what, exactly? All the story says is that "Corona, who attended Bright Futures Academy, a Riverside school serving special-needs students, got into an altercation with another student and school employees on the bus, police said."

Altercation is a vaguely defined word but it suggests he was having an argument and was angry. It doesn't say that he assaulted people. It doesn't say that he did anything punishable by death.

Merriam Webster notes "altercation implies fighting with words as the chief weapon, although it may also connote blows <a loud public altercation>."

I hope you realize that you seem to be suggesting that merely being in an argument while autistic deserves the death penalty?

At least, it means that as much as what ASPartOfMe has posted is somehow disempowering autistic people by saying they shouldn't be killed for getting in arguments on the schoolbus.

Are you seriously arguing that no fight took place to initiate the restraint hold?


CBS

So shall we check the dictionary to see what "fight" means?

Like Adamautism said I do not know what he is exactly "guilty" of. When I was in high school there was fights quite often. One or two teachers would seperate the combatants. Was this fight so different that it required multiple staff to restrain him and him only?. Until I know that I can not find fault and maybe give passes to anybody.

For those who don't have autism that's severe enough that they suffer violent meltdowns, to me it's similar to having an epileptic seizure. I even discussed this analogy with someone who has epilepsy and suffers from frequent grand mall seizures who agreed with my assessment. When I violent meltdown takes hold of me, I lose all control of myself. It's like the thinking and reasoning part of my brain completely shuts down and something totally primal takes over. These meltdowns take the form of me hitting myself, slamming my knee into my face, biting myself and the like. Or sometimes I'll start grabbing things and smashing them. Or sometimes I scream and yell at people while hitting and kicking. Again, like an epileptic seizure, this is my brain going haywire on me and I have zero control over it. It starts with my head and neck felling red hot, I see bright white lights, and the next thing I know I'm pinned down and restrained and drenched in sweat.

The idea that anyone under such conditions is in any way accountable for they're behavior is absolutely ridiculous and spoken out of pure lack of experience of what it's like for us with more severe autism.

What steps have you taken to deal with this problem? Does medication or CBT help at all? I understand that you are saying you lose control, but do you take steps to prevent yourself from getting to this stage?

My point is that you are responsible. There are many steps you can take to avoid these "meltdowns." And if you are hurting someone else during these "meltdowns," then you should expect a physical response.

........

Last edited by EzraS on 22 Dec 2016, 8:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

Why do you think that?


Of course I do.


You are the one making assumptions. You may not like what I said, but I'll ask again. What steps do you take to prevent your meltdowns?