Pandemonium

From the Daytona Beach News-Journal-

DAYTONA BEACH -- It could have been a disaster scene from a B-movie: a flooded hospital floor, overhead sprinklers gone haywire, medical supplies floating down the hallway and nurses calming panicked patients while police officers wade through the watery mess trying to make sense of the chaos.

Except this was reality at Halifax Medical Center on Tuesday night after a 39-year-old patient who threatened to commit suicide barricaded himself inside a shower, turned on the water full force and tore out the plumbing.

"He was a little disturbed," Daytona Beach Sgt. Jimmie Flynt said about patient Michael Ordway.

The commotion started on the ninth floor of the hospital just after 11 p.m. Ordway holed himself up inside the shower stall in room 910 and kept nurses at bay for 30 minutes by threatening them with a piece of ceramic tile he had shattered inside the stall.

When officers arrived at Halifax about 11:50 p.m. and went up to the ninth floor, the elevator doors opened up on sheer pandemonium.

Nurses were handing out masks and moving patients; the smell of smoke from electrical equipment that had short-circuited penetrated the air, and medical supplies, towels and clothes floated by in the corridor. Overhead sprinklers had been set off and rained inside.

Officer John Hughes headed toward Ordway's room and was greeted at the door by a frazzled nurse who said, "He's trying to kill himself in the bathroom. He's crazy."

Having just endured a 12-day hospital stay, I can attest to hospitals not being the best place for a person's mental well being. If its not the lack of sleep from someone coming to check your vitals, to the annoyance of having a PCA decide your room is too cold and takes it upon herself to change your AC setting without asking your opinion first, to the salisbury steak for dinner, to having to fast three straight mornings because your operation was postponed twice..... you get the idea there is something to make you nuts.

Crazy or sane, Mr. Ordway's actions are more than a tad extreme. The rest of the article is below.

As Hughes neared Ordway in the shower, he saw the suspect standing in the corner mumbling, his hands covering his face from the gushing water. The officer reached out and touched Ordway's shoulder, offering help. Ordway lowered his hands and peered at Hughes, telling him he needed a "real cop." Then Ordway punched the officer in the chest, a police report states.

Hughes slammed his flashlight into Ordway's head. When the man again tried to attack Hughes, the officer pushed him back, sending him into the tile wall of the shower.

After Ordway was handcuffed he continued to struggle in the hallway, police said. He kicked another officer in the hip and it took several more officers and employees to place him on a gurney so he could be injected with a sedative, the report states. In the emergency room, it took several employees to place leather restraints on Ordway.

An emergency room doctor told Hughes that Ordway had been brought to the hospital under the state's Baker Act -- which allows for people who are a threat to themselves or others to be held for 72 hours -- on Saturday, but that he was going to be "cleared of mental issues." Patients with psychiatric problems normally stay on the ground floor. Halifax spokeswoman Salina Wang said she did not know why Ordway had been transferred to the ninth floor.

Patient Sharon Drozd, however, wishes he never had.

Hospitalized for kidney failure three rooms from Ordway, Drozd said she had just turned off her lights at five minutes to midnight when she heard people yelling in the hallway. Then she saw people running by her room.

"I could hear the man screaming and cursing from his room." Drozd said Wednesday. "I felt like I was in a silly movie."

Drozd said two nurses told her she and her roommate had to move because of water on the floor and the smoke was too pungent.

Police said Ordway, who is still at Halifax, held again under the Baker Act, was charged with criminal mischief and battery on a law enforcement officer.

Wednesday afternoon, Drozd was relieved the ordeal was over: "It was different."

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