(Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of five stories about assaults at the Wyoming State Hospital and how local and state officials have attempted to curb violence by patients there.)

EVANSTON — Since the first story in this series was published about violence at the Wyoming State Hospital (WSH), the Herald has been inundated with phone calls from other victims of assaults by patients on hospital employees. The two victims in this story said they hope sharing their accounts will help to create change for a safer work environment at the WSH. Although some of the assaults detailed in this series took place before she was elected, Uinta County Attorney Loretta Howieson-Kallas explains why most of the patients aren’t prosecuted for assaulting staff or other patients.

Marlee Schultz worked for two different stretches at the WSH; first as an aide in 2012, and then in 2015 after becoming a CNA. She said in 2015 she was severely beaten by a patient there and suffered serious injuries.

“There were only two of us on the hall, and we were sitting with a patient who required two-on-one watching,” Schultz told the Herald. “The patient stood up and said she was leaving. When I asked where she was going, she grabbed the other CNA and threw her against a cabinet. The panic button didn’t work, and we screamed, and the supervisor came into the hall.  The patient then grabbed my ponytail and started beating me with her fist in my head and face. The other CNA couldn’t get up, and the supervisor just tried talking to the patient but didn’t try to restrain her.”

Schultz said it seemed like forever before security got there, and when another nurse who came to assist saw Schultz’s face was badly swollen, she insisted that Schultz go to the hospital.  Schultz said she had to drive herself to the hospital because they were short-staffed.

The ER doctor took X-rays of Schultz’s neck and face. She suffered a concussion and a sprained neck and was referred to a physical therapist. She said the physical therapist did an eye test and saw that Schultz’s eyes were misaligned, so he sent her to a brain specialist in Salt Lake City. The specialist diagnosed her with a brain injury and she was treated with special glasses to help realign her eyes.

Schultz was on leave for approximately four months, and when she was finally released to return to work, she asked the hospital administration to put her on a hall where that same patient would not be allowed. Schultz said that particular patient (a very large woman who consistently is mentioned in other assaults) seemed to have it in for her and had assaulted her at least four other times prior to the serious injury. 

That patient was allowed to roam on APS (adult psychiatric services) halls when she had calmed down. So on another day after Schultz had returned to work following the serious injury, she, another patient and this particular woman patient were playing cards. Schultz said the female patient said she didn’t want to play cards any longer and got up, grabbed Schultz by the hair and dragged her into the hallway. When the patient reached the exit door, she let go of Schultz’s hair.

“No one came to help me, except one CNA. Finally, when security came, they put the patient in seclusion. Mandt training doesn’t work with a patient the size of that woman,” Schultz said. “Often, the hospital puts two small women CNAs to work alone, and it is a set-up for failure.  They need to provide better methods to protect the staff with protective gear and a way to defend themselves.”

Schultz said she resigned that same year and said she would never work there again. She said she’s been diagnosed with PTSD and suffers from frequent migraine headaches, permanent short-term memory loss, and pain in her neck, arm and shoulder. She said her doctor recommended at least two more years of brain, eye and physical therapy and told her that if she were ever hit on the head again, it could be fatal. Schultz said that workers compensation has denied paying for the continued therapy.

The same patient who attacked Schultz also assaulted Matthew Argyle, who worked as a CNA at the WSH from 2013 to 2015.

Argyle said his serious injury took place on Aug. 23, 2014, and he was on leave for a substantial amount of time. During that time he was paid temporary disability. Argyle tearfully told the Herald about the incident. 

A female patient was in her room and getting agitated, so Argyle went into the patient’s room to try to verbally deescalate the situation. When that didn’t work, the safety team came into the room with a restraining board. Argyle said at that time the hospital had what they termed “safety teams” composed of two employees from each hall who volunteered to be on the teams. 

When the team of workers strapped her to the board, one of the straps was not placed correctly and the patient could still move her arm. One staff member was at the top of the board, four were on one side and Argyle and another employee were on the other side. Argyle said the patient reached over and grabbed him by the testicles. He dropped the board and was relieved by another employee so he could sit down. When Argyle heard the safety team having trouble getting the patient down the hall, he went to help. That is when she once again grabbed Argyle’s testicles. He said everyone there heard a loud snap sound. 

“This is when the serious injury to my testicles happened,” Argyle said. “Eventually, it took 15 people to restrain her as she escalated even more and was pulling people’s hair out.”

Argyle said that even though he was in considerable pain he helped to carry the patient out the door. When he went to the ER, he said the doctor told him to use an ice pack to reduce the swelling.

When the pain continued to become more intense, Argyle went to a urologist at McKay Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah. There he had an ultrasound and an MRI that showed his vas deferens, the duct that conveys sperm from the testicle to the urethra, had been ripped away from the back of his testicles. Argyle said he suffered for eight months with incredible pain and today still experiences sensitivity and moments of sharp pain in his testicles.

When Argyle returned to work at the hospital he was put on light duty. He said the human resources personnel at the hospital at that time were wonderful and tried to help him. Argyle said he did file a police report and tried to file sexual assault charges against the patient, but was unable to get an attorney who would handle the case. He had never joined the union so he wasn’t able to get help from them.

Two years later, Argyle went to a urologist in Oregon and was told he would have a one-in-a-million chance of fathering a child.

Argyle said that he thinks the two weeks of training with only three days of hands-on Mandt training the hospital provides is not sufficient, adding that staff should be able to use more restrictive methods with combative patients. He said that when the police come, they can use Tasers. He also said the hospital administration should show more appreciation and understanding of what the direct care staff experience on the halls.

After Argyle resigned from the WSH in October of 2015, he moved to California. His partner, a teacher, already lived and worked in California. He has found employment as a lead carpenter for a mini-golf course, where he earns more and, more importantly, the job is much safer than working at WSH, Argyle said.

“And by some miracle, we have had a baby girl. We named her Amelia Rose, after Amelia Earhart who was a strong woman,” Argyle said.

Several victims of assault have expressed frustration that patients haven’t been arrested and prosecuted for the injuries they’ve caused. They said they’ve been told filing charges would do no good because mentally ill people can’t be charged with a crime. Uinta County Attorney Loretta Howieson-Kallas said that’s not the case.

“No, there is no state law that you cannot charge a mentally ill person with a crime,” she told the Herald in November of last year. “What a lot of people don’t understand is that we, as attorneys, have a whole lot of ethical legal obligations. There are special rules for prosecutors set by the American Bar Association. Ethically, we are not supposed to prosecute to seek punishment but to seek justice.”

Howieson-Kallas said if she were to prosecute a person who is not competent to stand trial, then that would be a malfeasance of her ethical duties because she would be initiating a prosecution for conviction rather than for justice. 

Most of the patients who are not on Johnson Hall, the forensic area of the hospital, are there under Title 25 commitments for mental health crisis support. If a patient is there because they have been determined to be incompetent (unable to understand the basic functions of the court system and/or society), then they are not able to be prosecuted.

Wyoming Statute 7-11-302 provides the guidelines for a trial or punishment of a person lacking mental capacity. That statute states: no person shall be tried, sentenced or punished for the commission of an offense while, as a result of mental illness or deficiency, he lacks the capacity to comprehend his position; understand the nature and object of the proceedings against him; conduct his defense in a rational manner; and cooperate with his counsel to the end that any available defense may be interposed.

On the flip side, Howieson-Kallas said, her office is already backlogged with patients accused of assault who are waiting for the hospital to determine their competency. Howieson-Kallas said if a patient cannot control their behavior by definition of incompetence and she pursued charges, the county attorney’s office would just be repeating why they are in the WSH already and there would be no point in it. 

“The prior [WSH] administration had a general policy not to pursue charges,” Howieson-Kallas said, “I believe the policy on how to handle aggressive behavior creates an unsafe environment. I can’t tell the WSH how to do their job, but I think that protective gear and spit masks would be useful and provide more safety for the employees.”

She said her personal belief is that society doesn’t run in the middle ground on anything and in the past, those aggressive patients would have been in a prison or at least would not have had the privileges they have now at the WSH. Society works harder today to keep mentally ill persons out in the community so the more violent mentally ill are in the institutions.

“Statistically we have more people today that have no respect for authority or for people who are putting their lives at risk daily,” the county attorney said. “In the last five years, we have seen a fluctuation of patients who rotate through the WSH and, for a variety of reasons, rotate back in. There seems to be more ‘whistle-blowers’ now, which has added to the number of cases reported to the police. For whatever reason, most of the significant injuries to staff and other patients in the last five years have been caused by the same four or five difficult patients.”

She said she thinks the new facility will provide a safer environment, as it is designed to facilitate more patients with fewer staff but will provide better monitoring due to single-bed occupancy and quicker response from security all being under one roof.