Please walk me through what happens when you bring a suicidal child to the ER
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Anonymous
| This is not my child, but a friend of my child. My kid knows what is going on with his friend and asked me what happens next. And I don't know what to tell him, because I have not experienced it. |
Anonymous
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Getting the kid to the ER is a good first step! They will go through regular triage at the ER and then into the ER psych ward. There will be a lot of waiting. Eventually, they will see a doctor who will do an assessment of whether they seem to be in immediate danger.
Depending on the results of that assessment, they will either be admitted on a psych hold or released with recommendation to follow up with their pediatrician or mental health provider. Suicidal ideation and attempting suicide have slightly different assessment/next steps paths. |
Anonymous
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What age?
They can put them on a 48 hr hold and they are put in a hospital room. They will be given some drugs probably to calm them. If they can’t stabilize them to go out patient they will go to an inpatient program. If they are over 18 the hospital can only hold them if they are a danger to themselves or other. But then it’s up to the 18 year old to decide if they get help, in patient or out. |
Anonymous
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This is a 12 year old.
Thank you. This is helpful. I don't know what to do other than pray for the child and family and tell my son what is appropriate for him to know. |
Anonymous
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Tell your kid that it’s like going to the ER for any issue - the doctors will assess the kid and figure out what the right next steps are. If kid is not admitted, they could go home the same day and back to school soon after (depending on how they feel).
If your kid is in the friend role, the best thing they can do is trust that the adults involved are handling the mental health stuff and keep on with regular friendship stuff. If your kid learned and helped flag that their friend was experiencing suicidal ideation to a teacher or other adult, give them lots of praise. They did the right thing! |
Anonymous
Sometimes there is a different method of attack because he's suicidal. They might give meds and take some more time to address the issue if not life threatening. 
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Anonymous
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Does the child want to go? If not it’s even harder. Here has been our experience with Merrifield crisis center. We have been there multiple times. They completed an evaluation and since there wasn’t an actual suicide attempt, they either sent us all home or told us to we could go to the ER if we wanted but we would likely sit for 12+ hours if not longer and may not be admitted.
We have had better luck finding help by calling places directly like Sandstone, Dominion and Embark. We are in VA. It’s a slow, hard process. I’m so sorry for anyone going through this and trying to get mental help. You can also post on the special needs board. They have been supportive for me. |
Anonymous
| 6:22 again and I realize this isn’t for OP’s kid but posted for anyone who may find it helpful. OP, I would tell your kid his friend would likely get an evaluation and then they would decide the next steps to help him. Since you don’t know if they ER will actually admit. |
Anonymous
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For my 11yo’s verbal suicide threat at school, they sent us to the children’s ER. In triage, they asked questions (specifically “Are you thinking of hurting yourself right now? Do you have a plan for how you would do it?”), explained the process if she was admitted, and then had us wait to speak with the doctor.
Doctor came in, spoke with DD and us separately, then sent us home because it was her first time saying this as far as we knew, she didn’t appear to realize the severity of her words, and DD wasn’t in distress while there (very composed, willing to talk, etc,). We got a referral for a longer evaluation the next day. They gave her some worksheets/coping tools to try while we waited for a therapy appointment closer to home. |
Anonymous
| Even if they want to admit him, he'll likely spend several days or longer boarding in the ER, waiting for a bed. If you know the parents, consider reaching out to ask if he would appreciate a phone call or other communication from your child. |
Anonymous
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I've been down this road... My ER (Suburban) took kid back, put a nurse at his door to make sure he wouldn't hurt himself, had a social worker evaluate him, then referred him to a PHP that had a spot. We were desperate at the time - kid had ideation, so no attempt. Wish I had pushed for an evaluation at one of the private treatment places some PP mentioned. Primary care doc was completely useless. Our medical system is completely ill-equipped to handle these situations.
Overall, ER was more traumatizing than helpful for SI. If you can find any other resource, use it. |
Anonymous
My kid who spent years being suicidal and had many attempts has been to many different ERs. Not once were meds given in the ER. They were medically stabilized and then a mental health specialist came in to do an eval. They were always admitted because of the severity of the issues, but admission isn’t a guarantee. Lots of people are discharged if the mental health tech does not see the patient as a danger to self or others with a plan and a means to carry it out. But there was always a long delay because lots of psych hospitals don’t do admissions after hours so we had to wait in the ER until the next morning. As an aside, reason for different ERs is that IME, each one has a particular hospital or hospitals they admit to. Since we were having so many hospitalizations, I wanted to see if a different program might be more successful. Also when your kid goes by ambulance you don’t have any way in the matter of where they go. |
Anonymous
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They are experienced with this and it's fine. I've had to do this twice. Visit #1 they took teen to an inpatient facility in an ambulance. Teen #2 they assessed and said they didn't think she was immediately suicidal and sent her home with a list of referalls.
They had both kids do a telemed with an online professional assessor. They did want blood and urine to screen for drugs. |
Anonymous
Agreed. Meds have not been part of our experience in the ER. That comes from psychiatric care after the ER. The ER is all about triage and stabilizing and deciding next steps - in patient or outpatient. One thing has seemed standard operating procedure at suburban is safety: security officer wands the child, they have to put all their clothes and belongings in a bag at nurses station, a staff person watches them 24-7 even if parent is there and the door has to be open. They basically don’t take any chances kid could hurt themselves. There is a medical work up too- standard bloodwork for metabolic stuff plus toxins and urine analysis. triage by nurse, evaluation by pediatrician and then a long wait for evaluation by crisis counselor If in patient is decided, be prepared to board in the ER Suburban doesn’t have adolescent psychiatric beds so they have to arrange a transfer (which happens by ambulance btw). We had terrible experience with Dominion but Children’s apparently hasn’t taken Suburban transfers in a long time bc their ER is so full (what we were told). So if you want Childrens, maybe wise to start at their ER. Good luck to everyone in this situation. You are not alone. |
Anonymous
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It will be deeply traumatizing. They will have no privacy, no modesty.
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