New scrutiny of psychiatric hospital with history of attacks

SEATTLE (AP) — Federal scrutiny intensified Friday on Washington state's largest psychiatric hospital as authorities 300 miles away went door-to-door handing out flyers searching for a patient accused of killing a woman who had escaped the 800-bed facility two days earlier by crawling through a window of a lower-security ward.

Western State Hospital in Lakewood, south of Seattle, had already been under investigation for attacks on patients and staff and a failure to improve safety when Anthony Garver, 28, and another patient escaped through the ground-room floor window Wednesday night.

U.S. regulators already were investigating a recent violent attack on a hospital worker and a patient-on-patient sexual assault at Western State Hospital.

A workplace inspection released this week found a series of missteps that posed safety risks, including unlocked rooms, unattended items that could be used as weapons and workers who abandoned their posts instead of watching patients.

The murder charge was dismissed after a judge said mental health treatment to prepare him for trial was not working.

Hundreds of employees have suffered concussions, fractures and cuts in assaults by patients, resulting in $6 million in workers' compensation claims between 2013 and 2015.

The hospital faces new scrutiny after the two attacks and escape, said Steven Chickering, associate regional administrator of a division of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The state's Behavioral Health Administration, which oversees the facility south of Seattle, is conducting a safety review and will bring in outside experts to help, assistant director Carla Reyes said.