Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [111]
The paramedics took Lisa to the nearby Morton Plant Hospital emergency room. There, she struck the staff as lucid but resistant to questions, opening her eyes only on command. "She was being very robotic," recalled Kimberly Brennan, one of the nurses on call. Brennan called Dr. Flynn Lovett, the emergency physician on call, who felt strongly that Lisa should be admitted for a psychiatric evaluation and phoned the hospital's mental health unit.
It was just around then, Brennan recalled, that an official from the Church of Scientology showed up. It was perplexing because to Brennan's knowledge, Lisa hadn't called anyone, nor had anyone else phoned the church. Moments later, another church official walked into the emergency room, and then a third. With great agitation they explained to the hospital staff that any form of psychiatry was against the Scientology religion and that Lisa would be better off in the church's care. "They were very upset that we were going to have an evaluation done," Brennan later told the police. "And basically, they did not leave her bedside."
Joe Price, a psychiatric nurse who'd been called to examine Lisa, didn't know what to make of this. "I've never had someone ... just straight out tell you that they don't believe in psychiatry and that they really don't want your help or need your help," he said. One Church of Scientology official, a well-dressed man in a silk tie and tailored suit, handed Price a brochure. "The basis of the brochure," Price recalled, was that "all psychiatrists will either rape or sexually intimidate or molest their female patients."
Price assured the officials that he wasn't a psychiatrist or psychologist, but a nurse who simply wanted to ask Lisa some questions. The Scientologists allowed this, though they remained in the room. He introduced himself to Lisa and then asked if she wanted the Scientologists to leave. "I remember her saying that she didn't mind if they stayed at her side," he said. "And so they did and I completed my assessment."
Lisa was slow to answer Price's questions and exhibited other odd behavior, such as crossing her eyes, which she told him helped her to concentrate. She spoke calmly, but Price had a "gut feeling" that she wasn't speaking freely. The Scientologists "did not interrupt me while I was questioning her [but] I did notice and I felt that she was intimidated by their presence. So after I initially interviewed her, I went and spoke to Dr. Lovett and we asked them [if they would] mind if I talked to her alone."
The officials hesitated but ultimately agreed and walked a few feet away, around a corner. Price recalled, "I said, 'Lisa, do you need help? Do you want our help?' She said no ... She denied to me that anything was wrong." Price asked her if she was being held captive, or if she was being intimidated by anyone from the church. Again, Lisa said no.
The Florida Mental Health Act, also known as the "Baker Act," stipulates that patients can be involuntarily committed to a hospital only if they pose a danger to themselves or others, or in other ways exhibit obvious signs of mental illness. Lisa McPherson, Price said, did not meet these criteria. "She was alert and oriented times three. She was able to think abstractly ... She wasn't suicidal ... she wasn't homicidal. Was there any psychosis going on at the time—by that I mean, was she out of touch with reality? I don't think so." Granted, her behavior was strange, but he could find no reason to commit her. The Scientologists assured Price that Lisa wouldn't harm herself. "I want to go home with my friends from the congregation," Lisa said, in a passive voice.
Reluctantly the hospital agreed. At 8:40 that evening, less than two hours after being admitted, Lisa McPherson checked herself out of Morton Plant Hospital "against medical advice," and left with six Scientology officials, three at each arm. Standing by the door to the emergency room, Nurse Price watched them