Patient Emergencies

If you or a loved one is experiencing an emergency, we recommend you GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM or CALL 911.  

Medication Refills: 

Running out of your medication(s) should NOT be an emergency.  For more information about medications, please click here.

 

Threats of Suicide
It is extremely important that threats of suicide be taken seriously.  

This is especially true if the threats have been voiced repeatedly or the person is inebriated or under the influence of drugs. It is a dangerous myth to believe that suicidal threats are harmless attempts to get attention.

For immediate help, go to National Suicide Prevention Hotline
www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org or call 1800-273-TALK (8255).

For further information, go to the link About Suicide at the following website:
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention:  http://www.afsp.org/

What To Do if a Friend or Loved One is in a Severe Emotional Crisis:

If someone is in the midst of a severe emotional crisis, characterized by suicidal or homicidal intent or exhibiting bizarre behavior, it is unlikely that he/she will initiate going to the emergency room. In this situation, it is often necessary to call emergency services at 911 and be given aid for the situation.

 

Suspected Abuse: Child Abuse
Keeping children and young people safe is a responsibility we all share and together we can make a difference. When children are being abused, they are usually too scared to tell anyone. They cannot help themselves and, too often, the people they should be going to for help are the ones abusing them. Child abuse might be sexual, physical, emotional or neglect. Often children are abused in more ways than one. Below are a few of the evident signs:

  • A child or family member tells you they’re being abused (this is called disclosure). 
  • Physical signs, such as bruising. 
  • Behavioral signs (e.g., becoming aggressive or withdrawn). 
  • Developmental signs (e.g., a child not progressing).
  • Domestic violence. 

Suspected child abuse or neglect should be reported to Child Protective Services (CPS) at 1-800-800-5556. For further information and resources go to their website at:  www.pcain.org/reporting_abuse.asp

When you call CPS, it is important that you have all of the identifying information in front of you: name, age of each child, address, and phone number. You may call without this information, but it helps CPS to quickly investigate. When you are describing a situation, remain calm and maintain a "factual" manner with dates, eyewitness observations and direct conversations. Biased language is often a "red flag" for a CPS report, which is why it is important to keep your report factual.

 

Suspected Abuse: Domestic Violence
Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of behavior in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner. Abuse can be defined as physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that frighten, intimidate, terrorize, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame, injure or wound someone.

For immediate help, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−SAFE (7233) or TTY 1−800−787−3224. You may also find more resources and information on their website at http://www.ndvh.org. For immediate shelter, please contact Sheltering Wings at 317-745-1496 or go to their website at www.shelteringwings.org

 

How Emergencies are Generally Handled:
After you report the details of the emergency, in most communities, emergency services will then send both the police and an EMT ambulance to your location. Both the police and EMT workers will assess the situation and decide whether or not the person needs hospitalization. If the threat is deemed as serious as the phone call indicated, they will bring the patient to the hospital emergency room where they will undergo further evaluation and wait until arrangements are made in a local psychiatric facility or hospital inpatient unit. 

Once moved, the patient may be medicated and stabilized until the crisis has passed. The treatment may include meetings with the psychiatrist and attendance at group counseling sessions. Once the patient is deemed safe, the psychiatric unit will likely return the person home with medication and recommendations for continued treatment.