Long story short. My exboyfriend violated his parole for drug positives and was court mandated to go into inpatient rehab for 30 days. Turns out he was addicted to percocet, meth, weed and cocaine. So you can imagine what a rough detox this would be.

Anyway, they took his phone (remember this is not voluntary rehab) however, he must have snuck in a 2nd phone and started harassing me. The 1st night he called and when I reinforced we were finished, he threatened to kill himself. I called the facilty told them about his threat and told him about the phone he snuck in. They said they would take care of it. I call back 1 hour later to see if they got him because he threatened to leave to kill himself. They told me to call back during business hours.

2nd day, still receiving texts and calls, which I refused to acknowledge. That is until he said something so horrible I had to write back and tell him again.. its over.
Once I write that I call the facility again and tell them how he still has this phone he snuck in. They said, oh that's a no no we will take care of it.

Day 4... more texts and calls from him. Again threatening to kill himself and saying some nasty things. I call for the 4th time and tell them they need to confiscate his phone as its not allowed. He isn't focusing on himself or detoxing. They once again say, we will take care of it. I block the # of the phone he has. Problem solved right?

Today comes and I leave work. I head to my friends place and as I pull up at the house, here he pops up from my backseat. He escaped from detox and hid in my car. He scarea the living crap out of me and says he just wants to talk. I tell him again- its over and he gets all upset and runs out into the road and tries to have a car hit him. Once that doesn't work, he kicks in the house front door and steals a butcher knife to kill himself with. He hoes running into the state park to kill himself. He finally gave himself up with some superficial marks. He is in a psych ward right now. But was texting people as he still had the phone.

When we called the detox place they said, we thought he was missing... hello you only have 6 beds..

Now my question is, thankfully he wasn't violent towards us, but still cause @ $500 in damages to the door. It was medcial assisted detox, so he was on all sorts of drugs. Can we hold the detox facility responsible for the damages as they were incompetent and didn't do their jobs. It could have turned put worse, but still, do not want someone else to go through what I did. Thanks so much

Why not hold him accountable?

He is going to be held accountable, but they are the ones who were supposed to handle the detox as they said it can get ugly. Medical professionals are supposed to be monitoring them all day as it can cause suicidal thoughts and violent outbursts. This didn't turn out bad, but the detox was responsible for his well being and failed.

Patients walk out of hospitals all the time. The hospital/facility is not responsible for the actions of the patients. The patient is. There is no way to assure a patient will stay aside from restraining them. Restraints are a matter of medical necessity if the patient is a threat to himself or others.

I don't see see a case here against anyone other than the addict.

Um... its not a maximum security prison, and the medical people aren't prison guards... you can't hold them to those standards. Ultimately its HIS responsibility for his actions... not anyone else.

You are trying to blame everyone BUT who is actually responsible

He left AMA. Against Medical Advice, he knew the consequences. You can't force someone to stay. That would be jail, not a health facility.

No, you don't have a case.

I agree with the others; the facility is not responsible.

But further, I note that the only real damage, to the door, doesn't result from the facility's failure to insure that he didn't have a phone. All of that (I love it when we are told "Long story short, ...". That means that the story will be long and filled with a boatload of irrelevant information) aside, while this may be a comedy of errors, the meat of it is the fact that he was allowed to leave the facility, resulting in the broken door. Again, as others have indicated, the facility is not responsible for that.