DENVER—A restraint method linked to the deaths of four people in state custody over the last decade is closer to being banned in Colorado.
The state Senate gave preliminary approval Friday to a ban on “prone restraint,” in which a person is laid face-down and held or tied. The method is sometimes used in prisons or mental health hospitals to subdue unruly people.
The Colorado Department of Human Services, which oversees mental health hospitals, banned prone restraint earlier this year.
The method was blamed for the 2010 death of a patient at Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo. Troy Geske, a 41-year-old patient being treated for schizophrenia, suffocated after he was laid on his face with his hands and feet tied behind his back.
Three others have died in prisons or mental health facilities since 2001, said the ban’s sponsor, Democratic Sen. Suzanne Williams, of Aurora. They include Ryan Ramos, who died at the Grand Junction Regional Center in 2004 after being restrained and choking on his own vomit, KMGH-TV reported last year in an investigation of prone restraint deaths.
“It’s just an inhumane way to die,” Williams said after the prone restraint ban passed easily on a voice vote. The Senate will vote on the ban once more, likely next week, before it goes to the House.
Family members of the four who died all testified earlier this month in favor of a ban that would apply to all state facilities, including schools and prisons, not just mental hospitals.
“As a mother, I am begging you to ensure that this will not happen to another family,” said Geske’s mother, Linda Stephens.
The ban includes an exception for “brief, temporary face-down positioning” to gain control over an unruly patient or prisoner. However, prison guards or hospital staffers would not be able to leave a person alone tied that way.
The state Department of Corrections already has a policy against extended periods of prone restraint, Williams said. But it’s important to spell out in state law that the method isn’t allowed, she said.
“If they say they train, and they say they ban it, why are these deaths happening?” Williams asked.
Mental health advocacy groups and the state’s Developmental Disabilities Council have testified in support of the ban.
