Florida nurse attacked: Family wants to see change in wake of brutal beating by Baker Act patient

Family of attacked Florida nurse wants change

The family of a Florida nurse who was brutally beaten by a Baker Act patient at a hospital wants to see more security at hospitals and better training for employees on how to handle patients having a mental health crisis.

PALM BEACH, Fla. - A Florida nurse who had essentially every bone in her face broken by a Baker Act patient who attacked her has a long road to recovery as her family demands change.

Nurse attacked

The backstory:

Leelamma Lal, 67, dreamed of being a nurse since she was a child and has worked at Palms West Hospital in Palm Beach for 21 years.

Her daughter Cindy Joseph, who is a physician, said in the past her mother would occasionally have a patient raise their voice or yell at her, but nothing turned physical until Feb. 18. That’s when, according to a probable cause affidavit, 33-year-old Stephen Scantlebury brutally attacked Lal in a room at Palms West Hospital.

Leelamma Lal was brutally attacked by a patient who was being held under the Baker Act. Image is courtesy of the Lal family.

Scantlebury was being held under the Baker Act.

"My understanding is his family requested that Palms West Baker Act him. Palms West, at first, refused to do so and then they sent him for a CT scan," stated Karen Terry, an attorney for Lal’s family. "He broke out of the CT scan room, began running around, at which time Palms West then Baker Acted him and then they sent him to the third floor, to the telemetry unit where they shouldn’t have sent him to begin with and then this violent attack happened. No one responded in a timely fashion. Somehow, he got scissors and started poking Leelamma’s eyes out and escaped, essentially naked, out of the hospital and ran across Southern Blvd. in traffic."

Lal was taken to another hospital in critical condition. A probable cause affidavit stated that "essentially every bone in her face was broken" and she would likely be blind.

911 calls

Big picture view:

Callers from inside and outside the hospital immediately began flooding 911.

One caller who said she was visiting her father at Palms West described chaos in the hospital.

Florida nurse attack: 911 calls

Listen to the 911 calls that were made during a brutal attack on a nurse at a Florida hospital.

Caller: "I’m in Palms West Hospital. I’m on the third floor. There’s some guy in here who’s nuts. We’ve closed the door."

Operator: "We’ve got another call. He’s on the third floor? Is he white, black or Hispanic?"

Caller: He’s white. He’s running around in dark-colored shorts. No shirt, no shoes, no socks."

Operator: "Does he have any weapons on him?"

Caller: "I don’t know. We slammed the doors shut. Me and my sister are standing up against the door so he could not come in here if he tried…This has been going on for over five minutes."

A man who identified himself as the hospital CEO also dialed 911.

CEO: "We had a Baker Act beat a staff member unconscious, now running around the building."

Operator: "You’re saying they beat an employee until they passed out?"

CEO: "Yes, knocked them unconscious. I’m not worried about that part. I need the Baker Act dealt with."

Operator: "Do you have the name of the Baker Act?"

CEO: "No. It doesn’t matter. I just need crews here."

The operator asks if the patient is white, black or Hispanic and tells the CEO to let him know when he has a description, but that help was on the way.

The operator asks if the patient is still in the building because they were getting calls that he was running down Southern Blvd.

CEO: "This could be nearly a fatality, this employee."

Operator: "It looks like we’re getting another caller that this nurse was possibly stabbed."

CEO: "I don't think there’s evidence of stabbing. I was just in the room."

The operator said that the patient is out on Southern Blvd. and the CEO replied that he was going out there.

The CEO asked where the deputies were taking the patient, and the operator said he wasn’t sure.

Then the CEO said, "She’s probably going to die."

The CEO added, "I don’t even know where they are taking this guy right now because the ER, my hospital is a wreck."

Suspect captured

Dig deeper:

Scantlebury was captured and underwent a medical clearance.

A witness said Scantlebury had been acting paranoid for the last two days, blaming people in his life for events they had nothing to do with, according to the affidavit.

Hate crime enhancement

Scantlebury was charged with second-degree attempted murder with a hate crime enhancement.

Stephen Scantlebury is accused of beating a nurse so severely that he essentially broke every bone in her face, according to an affidavit. Image is courtesy of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

"I always wondered in the back of my mind if this was a hate crime and then seeing that later on kind of confirmed that," Joseph stated. "You always think about that being an ethnic minority. That’s something you always think about in the back of your mind and so when I saw that, it made me even more angry. I can only imagine what she was thinking when she was being punched and just battered by him. She stood no chance to defend herself. I was told that she didn’t even scream. I think that was because he hit her so quickly and so forcefully that just kind of knocked her out. The pain that she felt, the confusion, the desperation as he was yelling those slurs to her, I couldn’t imagine what that was like for her, especially at her age."

Hate crime enhancements, if proven, can result in harsher penalties upon conviction. They highlight the motive behind the defendant's actions and their broader impact on the community.

Call for change

What's next:

Joseph wants to see policies change in the wake of her mother’s attack.

"I don’t believe she has any formal training in de-escalation or looking for signs that you need to look for these patients," Joseph stated. "There was no formal training. There were no techniques taught to her, so that’s something that should have been done if they are going to accept Baker Act patients onto a medical floor."

Leelamma Lal had worked at Palms West for about 21 years. Image is courtesy of the Lal family.

She added, "I think that hospitals need to do a better job at protecting their employees. They need to, at a bare minimum, give them better security, have correct protocols in place where if they’re going to accept a Baker Act patient that you have the things that you need for Baker Act patients, you have the security, you have cameras in the room, the staff is trained in certain techniques to de-escalate the situations and look for things in Baker Act patients. At minimum, they should do that. Also, take accountability. I think this was preventable. I think Palms West needs to accept accountability for what happened to my mom."

Joseph said that her emotions are up and down and she was in shock for a few days.

"I was angry," Joseph stated. "This happened to her at somewhere that she goes every day and she enjoys going to. She really loves being a nurse. She loves caring for people. She’s 67 years old, and she could have retired two years ago, but she chose to work because she wanted to help others."

Hospital responds

The other side:

FOX 13 has reached out to Palms West Hospital and is waiting to hear back from a hospital spokesperson.

Long road to recovery

What's next:

Joseph said that her mother was on a ventilator and a feeding tube, but is making strides every day.

She added that Lal is sad and uncomfortable and sometimes becomes confused and agitated.

"It’s going to be a while before she is able to hopefully be independent again, so it’s still a long way to go," Joseph shared.

Joseph told her mother that she had been in an accident because she didn’t want her to know what was going on, but her mother got mad when she told her she had been in an accident.

Leelamma Lal dreamed of being a nurse since she was a child. Image is courtesy of the Lal family.

Her mother nodded when she was asked if she remembered being at Palms West and what happened at Palms West.

Joseph believes she remembers some of the attack, but they won’t know more until she is able to communicate better.

Lal is still in the Intensive Care Unit.

Joseph said Lal will eventually be moved to another floor and then she will need rehabilitation. She added that it may be about six months before she can go home.

Joseph said her mother is very religious and faith has helped her and her family get through this ordeal.

"She believes God loves her and that God sees the best in everyone," Joseph shared. "To be honest, when my mom, when and if she does come through, she’s going to go to church and hope that this attacker doesn’t do this again. She’s probably going to go to church for him, knowing the kind of person she is."

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The Source: This story was written with information gathered in an interview with Cindy Joseph and attorney Karen Terry, 911 calls, an affidavit, and information posted by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

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