Location: Raleigh, NC, USA

Context: No history of mental illness, medication, hospitalization, medical treatment or transportation, criminal record, or substance abuse.

Story:
This past Saturday I decided to go out drinking with my sister and some friends after the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup. We were having a normal day and decided to go over to another friend’s apartment and planned to go out to downtown Raleigh where all the festivities were. Now I hadn’t drank since New Year’s and I massively overestimated my tolerance. I’m about a year out of college and since then kinda left the whole college student drinking culture behind, but for this one night I just decided I was gonna have fun. I ended up blacking out pretty quickly after drinking at a similar speed and quantity as I did in college, without any tolerance. I passed out in the apartment and was taken back in an Uber to my sister’s apartment where the plan was to have me sleep it off. At some point on the Uber ride home, I started having a massive panic attack. From this point on, I remember only little pieces, but heard what happened from my sister. My panic was getting so bad that I was crying, yelling, and I eventually took off running. A lot of people came out to help, but at some point EMS and police were called. As I understand it, I had started to calm down prior to EMS arriving, but it escalated again when they came. Very quickly police and EMS shoved me down to the ground after I repeatedly stated I refused medical transportation and treatment. This made it a lot worse because now I wasn’t just crying, I was actively agitated. I didn’t say or do anything that would indicate I was a threat to others or myself at any point in this process, but I was yelling and pleading quite loud after they had thrown me down on the ground. I continued to say I refused medical treatment and transportation. At some point they decided to sedate me with benzodiazepines and transported me to the hospital, which was not properly communicated upon my admission to the hospital. When I woke up in the hospital, I was in active psychosis, which I believe was triggered by the benzodiazepines. I have never had psychosis, used drugs, or been hospitalized or treated in any way for these things. The hospital told my Mom that I hadn’t been sedated, but my urine sample from the next day showed that they were still detected in my urine and I completely lost consciousness when transported. On the basis of my condition in the hospital, they had me involuntarily committed. When the psychologist did my psych eval, the benzos were still detected in my urine and BAC was still elevated. Based on her evaluation, the hospital moved to have me transferred from the ER to a mental institution where I was held for three days. While at the institution, the staff were immediately on my side and moved rapidly to get me out despite the numerous legal and bureaucratic blockades to do so. I refused all medication while there (the only patient in my unit to do so) and had no further psychological or medical issues. The best way I can describe my time there is the blatantly obvious reality that I wasn’t supposed to be there. I befriended the staff and upon leaving, the lead social worker even tried to suggest I should consider working with the elderly in a different facility based on how well I was interacting with the other patients. When I was eventually released, the whole experience left me and my immediate family horrified. I plan to see a therapist to reconcile what happened and have not had any kind of standalone psychosis or delusions since. With that information, I am wondering if I have a legal claim against any of the parties involved and whether their actions were escalatory.

Thanks.