Staff at the locked psychiatric ward where actor Robert Carradine consigned himself seeking safety from his suicidal thoughts dropped the ball on numerous federal safety protocols, according to a newly released report.
Carradine died of suicide by hanging on Feb. 23, not long after checking in to UCLA’s Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital to receive treatment for severe depression and bipolar disorder, which he’d been contending with for decades.
Hospital staff was supposed to check on him every 15 minutes and confiscate contraband, including the belt he’d been wearing, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report obtained by TMZ.
But the 71-year-old “Revenge of the Nerds” actor kept the belt, his wallet and his cellphone, all of which went against federal requirements for upholding patient rights and providing nursing services, TMZ reported, citing the document. In addition, a non-sanctioned rolling bedside table had been left in the room, possibly by a previous patient, but staff did not remove it.
Carradine initially checked into the hospital, where he had previously been treated, on Jan. 16, fearful of being overwhelmed by suicidal thoughts spawned by his illness. Within a day a hospital aide found him unresponsive and in cardiac arrest with a belt around his neck, the legal firm representing his family in a lawsuit against the facility said in a statement.
Carradine was revived, but his brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long, and died of “sequelae of anoxic brain injury,” the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office found, with his manner of death as suicide by hanging.
His family filed a wrongful death and elder abuse lawsuit against the hospital earlier this month.
UCLA has not publicly commented on the matter.