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Mental Anguish at Texas West Oaks Hospital

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"Our staffing levels meet or exceed State requirements at all times."

Another Psychiatric Solutions facility, Cypress Creek in Houston, has also been sanctioned by the state in the past year. Its violations in two separate incidents resulted in $65,000 in fines and mirrored those cited at the West Oaks facility.

Mary says when she went to visit her sister Renee, she saw a male and a female staff member flirt and then grope each other right in front of her. She said the same sort of thing occurred among the patients, and the staff made no attempt to stop the activity. In addition, she says, staff members often reacted angrily, screaming and slamming doors themselves, which often sparked crying on the children's part. Patients who were going out of control were ignored, she says, and her mom was almost hit in the head with a chair thrown by a patient.

Patients were mocked by doctors and staff, she says. For example, one girl having trouble manipulating her silverware in order to feed herself was laughed at by staff members, who didn't help her either, Mary says.

In a somewhat bizarre twist, Frederick Williams, the tech who got in a fight with 41-year-old Vidaurre that led to the patient's death, has retained an attorney to represent him in a lawsuit against West Oaks, claiming he never should have been put in the position of providing one-on-one care to Vidaurre because he'd never been trained to do something like that.

Williams was alone with Vidaurre in the smoking area of the hospital when Vidaurre, who had been agitated for days, punched him in the face. A fight broke out in the locked courtyard area which has no video cameras, buzzer or alarm system. By the time it was over, Mario Vidaurre was dead. The autopsy report showed Vidaurre had suffered multiple rib fractures, laceration of the heart and injuries to his intestines, back, abdomen, chest, wrist, face, neck, buttocks, shoulders, both forearms and both knees.

Attorney Kerry Guidry of Robert Kwok & Associates says Frederick Williams was seriously injured as well.

"He broke his hand, had surgery on his hand, knocked his head open, cut it pretty severely and then his mental anguish and the mental aspects of taking another man's life. Even in self-defense that's taken a heavy toll on him."

Williams was no-billed by a grand jury that found he acted in self-defense, but an investigation by the Texas Department of State Health Services found that "the facility staff failed to protect the patient's rights to a safe environment and therefore resulted in the patient's death."

Williams's suit hasn't been filed yet, but it's going to say that they didn't properly train Williams as a one-on-one caretaker of someone as violently disturbed as Vidaurre and they didn't staff adequately, Guidry says. "It's pretty obvious he never should have been there by himself."

If Williams had been trained a little better, if there had been more help available, or if there had been an alarm system in the hospital's smoking area where the two men were by themselves, Guidry says Mario Vidaurre might not have died.
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Muhammad "Mo" Aziz is the attorney who took on West Oaks when Chaz Vidaurre came to him with the story of his brother's death. Although it looked for a while as though West Oaks was going to settle the case, Aziz says it now appears it will be tried, and he has filed the lawsuit alleging medical malpractice.

Aziz, of Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Sorrels & Friend, has just become involved in another case against West Oaks. He is representing Alma and Alveh Chambers, parents of Alan Chambers. Brought to West Oaks after trying to kill himself, Alan was allowed to go into his room, slamming the door behind him, and remain there undisturbed long enough to tear up and braid the bed linen he used to hang himself with.

Cynthia Pickett, attorney with the firm of Doyle Restrepo Harvin & Robbins, is representing Alan Chambers's wife Linda and the couple's three children, ranging in age from ten to 17, in a similar action against West Oaks.

Both attorneys make the same point: Why was an obviously disturbed and agitated man, who'd just been brought in after attempting to kill himself, left to his own devices?

His twin brother Greg says Alan started going in and out of depression when he was about 38. He'd get treatment for around three months and then would be good for another year and a half. Eventually, the bouts of depression took their toll and Alan moved out of his home, taking a garage apartment.

On the day of his suicide attempt, he'd gone to his wife's office and slit his wrists in what everyone described as superficial cuts. From there, he returned to his apartment, where he took every pill he had and then tried to assemble a pipe gun just as EMTs broke into his apartment, Pickett says.

Greg says his groggy brother was taken first to Cy Fair Hospital off Jones and 1960 and then on to West Oaks, arriving there at about 3 a.m. on March 21, 2007. Alan had been treated there on an outpatient basis for his deepening depression over the Christmas holidays, Pickett says.

At West Oaks, Alan was initially assigned to Unit 2. At all times he was under suicide watch. He promptly tried to leave the floor and was reassigned to Unit 1, where they could allegedly tighten the suicide precautions and the watch on him. When his medications wore off, he got violent. It was noted on the charts that he should be monitored very, very closely, Pickett says.

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