Jack Wood:: A Father's Fight for Mental Health Reform

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make your laugh, some will make your cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Humanity over Handcuffs the Silent Crisis special event. Joining us
day is Jack Would. He's a passionate advocate dedicated to
being a strong voice for individuals, families, and organizations affected
by severe brain disorders, including schizophrenia, psycho effective disorder, bipolar disorder,
and more. His mission is to drive meaningful change, aiming
to end Florida's catastrophic and inhumane outcomes for those with
severe mental illnesses. Jack focuses on improving conditions for groups
of people rather than just individuals. He will also tell
us how his son's struggles reshaped his perspective, inspiring him
to leverage those lessons to advocate for better laws and
support systems for everyone with mental illness. Thanks for coming on.
Not a problem, Not a problem.
If you could give us a little background on your
son and some of the struggles he had and how
they evolved.
Jonathan was adopted. He at age two and a half
contracted what's called nephrotic syndrome. It's a kidney disorder where
you're one of the membranes stops processing protein. You urinate
away your protein, and then if you catch a cold
you die. Ugly disorder. There is only three medications back
when this took place, and this would have been in
nineteen ninety ninety one, psychosporin, cytoxin, and predosone. They put
him on fifty five milligrams of prednisone and it goes
fourteen days and the kidney starts working again. Then we
go three or four months and it stops working again.
They go through that. When the present zone doesn't work,
then they put them back on cytoxin, which was a
kidney rejection and the other one was cancer drug. So
he went through those all the way up till age eight.
Unbelievable amount of trauma was physical induced from the heavy
dose of medication.
Is this something that affects even today?
He had his last episode when he was eight years
old and it's considered in remission. At age eleven, he
had assists the size of a large marble in the
center of his left kidney and ended up having major
surgery in Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and they took a
third of his left kidney. It was then that the
behavior problem started. They went all through grade school, all
through high school trying to figure out what it was.
And they looked at everything from oppositional defiance to reactive
attachment disorder, to obsessive compulsive disorder to early onset bipolar,
all different deals, and they tried a number of things,
and we spent fifteen visits to the Ohio State Medical
Center to try and diagnosis issue. And doctor Friestadt, who
was the chief psychologist at OSU, actually was the number
one psychologist in the country by the American Academy of
Psychiatry for her work in child in adolescent food disorders,
never got the thing solved fast forward, among a lot
of hospitalizations and some involuntary hospitalizations in high school. When
he turned eighteen, he came downstairs one morning and said, Dad,
I want all of my money today. And I said, well,
what money are you talking about? And he said, my
ten billion dollars. I have ten billion dollars. They took
blood from me when I was three years old and
four years old and found out that my blood plasma
would cure AIDS in the whole world. You couldn't get
the money then, Dad, because you had to cut a deal.
So you bill the attorney, Mike Pusia, chemist from Notre Dame,
and two professors in MIT and two doctors in the
Boston hospital got together and took my money. And you
have it, and I want it, and I want it today.
I'm now eighteen. That was the onset of schizoph We
have never seen him like it, Tony. He gave me
that storyline last night. It's been in place for eighteen years.
It's a very fixed hallucination and delusion. He has incredible
episodes with voices and delusions and all of the things
that come with the schizophrenic family.
With all these things happening, what were the next steps?
He has had multiple hospitalizations. He's spent at least seven
years of the last eighteen in hospitals. Two years ago,
in March seventeenth, he had an episode on Saint Patrick's day.
He had a Harry Potter wand waving it in my face,
and he was saying Dad, actually didn't call me Daddy,
said Jack Wells Wood, which is my full name. I
can disappear you with this wand. It's a magic wand
that has incredible power, and just woosh, woosh, and you'll
be gone from the universe. You will absolutely nobody will
ever even know, including your family, will ever even know
you were here. You will vanish, not out of Earth,
but out of the universe. And he kept going woosh, woosh, woosh. Well,
then he took the wand and pushed it deep into
my throat. He weighed three point thirty at the time,
and he said, one big shove and you're dead. You're gone.
I was able to get hold of the wand and
tear it out of his hand and throw it onto
the couch. Little did I know that was a sacred
tool to him. So number one, I got it away
from him, but too it was a sacred instrument. Grabbed
a bottle and started hitting me on the leg. And
then we got that away from him, and he went
to the counter and got a small kitchen knife and
stuck it in my left arm well. Prior to that,
he had been in the hospital a year, had been
out of the hospital for about ten months and started
having all the same symptoms in episodes that come with schizophrenia.
Was he in any programs at the time.
He was in a program called ACT. You may be
familiar with that. There are most of the states community
treatment team understaffed with underqualified people who were also underpaid. Unbelievable.
They would stop by our house once every two weeks
for thirty minutes with a sheet of paper to run
through a checklist to justify their payments. So Jonathan ended
up sticking me in the left arm with a knife.
And we had asked the ACT team if they would
please give him In Florida, it's called a Baker Act,
an involuntary hospitalization.
What happened when you tried that?
They refused to do that. They said that he's not
a threat to himself or threat to others. And we're saying,
you have no idea the amount of chotic episodes that
are going on with him. He is definitely not stable.
And we kept approaching, kept approaching, and finally they came
to me and they said, you need to call the
police if he does something dangerous, but we can't take him.
What happened from that point.
So Jonathan threatened me and he called the police himself.
What happened when the police got there.
Came to his house. He was living by himself in
a mobile home. He told the police he wanted to
put a restraining order on one hundred and fifty people.
And so they called me at home. You mister Wood,
Yes it is, well, is your son Jonathan? Yes, it is?
And he said is he doing all right? And I said, well,
he's he has mental illness. And I said he's having
a lot of schizophrenic psychotic episodes. Fine, I'll call you back.
He called me back and he said, geez, says mister Wood.
I know you're not going to like this information because
I can tell you that he's a very sick boy.
I can see that he's telling me that he won't
threaten himself for others. And so the only thing I
could do is you want to come out here. I
can follow you to the hospital with him, but no,
we can't take come in. So a week later, almost
to the day, Jonathan cut himself down his left arm
in fourteen places. The act team and the VP of
care for the Facility of Acute Care said, they all
cut speaking about schizophrenia, they all cut. So he's really
just making a big scene. He's not a threat to
himself for a threat to others. We're not going to
baker act him.
Something just doesn't seem right about that. What were your
options at that point?
Here's what you can do, mister Wood. You can go
to the Sumter County Court and apply for what's called
an X party. What's the next partey, Well, it's the
court given you the authority that if you think that
Jonathan is a threat to himself for others, then you
would have the authority to involuntarily hospitalize him. So I
went to the court spent two hours filling out paperwork.
The next day I get a call from the clerk
of the court and she said, your application for xpartey
has been denied. I didn't bring the paperwork on so
I got in my car and went down to the
courthouse ask him if I could have a copy of it,
and a big black stamp right in the center of
it with an X on it said denied. So I
was talking with the clerk of the court and she
said I will deny I ever said this, but I
believe that Judge Morley is turning the expartise down because
they will dispatch a sheriff to go pick up in
your case, your son. They will take him to the
local mental health care center. They will take him in
the access center, keep him four to six hours, give
him a PRN, and probably release them. And she said
that officer will spend six or seven hours working on
that case because he will not be able to leave
the scene until they either accept Jonathan there or turn
him back. And that's exactly what happened, so we weren't
able to do the exparte.
This is just too incredible to believe.
What happened one week to the day later, two weeks
to the day for the sheriff that when he was
the same sheriff for his name was Corpor mcfeeders. Jonathan
stuck me in the arm with a knife. We called
nine one one. Sheriff mcfeterers came out and sad gee
whizz I said, does he appear to be a threat
to himself now or others? Because there's blood all down
my arm. Aggravated battery to an over sixty five year
old felony of first degree. I had been working since
November to get him incarcerated. Did him involuntary taken in?
Because I, as a caregiver reparent, was watching the deterioration
February seventeen, follow these numbers February seventeen, twenty two to
February twenty four, they did an arrangement. At the arragement,
the judge said, my goodness, called the two attorneys ford
and said, this doesn't look right to me. We need
a mental health evaluation. Our next hearing date is July
twenty seven. Jonathan sat in a jail from March seventeen
to July twenty seven. July twenty seven comes around the
week of July twenty seventh. A psychiatric physician went in.
He evaluated and said he's not a threat to himself
for others. He's competent to stand his charges. Missus Wood
and I go to the hearing July twenty seven, same
thing happened. Jonathan came in and he was clearly out
of it. So the judge said, oh boy, we need
I don't know who judged him to be competent, but
this guy has a problem. Okay, Our next hearing will
be October twenty and told the attorneys to order another evaluation.
The evaluation never took place, so Jonathan sat from March
seventeen to October twenty. The only intervening he had was
a psychiatrist that came there for thirty minutes, did an
assessment and mailed it in. So we go to the
hearing and the attorney said, I hate to report this
to you. Judge Hatcher is her name, but Judge Hatcher,
I hate to report this, but the mental health aboutaluation
was not completed because the position that was going to
do the evaluation refused to come into the jail.
Wow, that's unbelievable. So what did you do from there?
Okay, our next hearing will be January eighteen. You need
to get the mental health evaluation. He's clearly out of it.
Second week of December, Jonathan had major meltdown. The other thing,
in Florida, they're allowed to have telephone access, so he
calls me on the average of twenty times a day.
He called me just yesterday twenty four times, and they
won't restrict the phone use. So I have to say
you can talk to me in the morning and at night,
and then I have to ignore all these phone calls.
So anyway, he called me and left the voicemail on
my phone, which was outrageous. Well, all of the phone
calls also that he made from the jail were reported,
so I went down to the jail to get the
actual reporting of the phone call he made before the voicemail.
They gave me a copy of it at the Sheriff's office.
Once they found out I had the copy, they did
a telephone hearing and sent him to the South Florida
State Hospital. Never even had a physical hearing. That wouldn't
have happened, Tony, had I not got my hands on
that disc Jonathan went to the South Florida Evaluation Training
Center January sixth, twenty twenty three. He was there May
twenty fourth. He was beat up, assaulted and beat up
physically in the jail. The person that did it, a
staff person, was fired. Jonathan was transferred to the north
West Florida State Hospital on May twenty fourth and was
there all the way through October.
With all the traveling you had to do, going back
and forth with the jail and everything was going on,
what was your next move?
In October they transferred him for the benefit of my
wife and I because it was a five hour drive.
Transferred him to the northeast Florida State Hospital. He went
there in October and stayed there through March of twenty four.
He then had a really major episode at the Florida
State Hospital. We called and talked to the psychiatrist the
following Tuesday to competency review meeting for Jonathan and sent
him back to jail. So Jonathan went there end of
October and in March this year he ended up going
back to the state hospital and that's where he is
right now. In Florida, there are six state hospitals, and
in the forensic unit of the six state hospitals, their
charge is to get the patient or the client competent
to stand their charges and return them to the court.
He did not get mental health treatment. He got mental
health maintenance with drugs that were not working, and then
judged to be competent.
This sounds like it didn't help youself at all where
he was bouncing around from place to place. Add to
that not getting the medication that he needed to get better.
The CEO of the local psychiatric hospital told me personally
over the phone. He said, absolutely, Jonathan became a problem
child to the hospital and they judged him competent and
returned him to jail. It's the jails problem. So we
went through that whole process and Jonathan now since October
of this year October thirty of this year, was sent
to Civil Hospital in Tallahassee, and that's where he's been since.
You'll be interested in this, I am participating. The Governor
of the State of Florida appointed a Commission on Mental
Health and Substance Viuse Reform. The Governor appointed six members,
the Senate President did six, and the Speaker of the
House did six. The members of the committee are CEOs
of major mental hospitals in the state of Florida, chief
Circuit court judges, sheriffs, and some college professors. That's the commission.
Then they have a number of subcommittees, and because of
sunshine laws, I don't have access to all the members
to have conversations if I'm a part of a subcommittee,
so I refuse to be a part of subcommittees. I
attend all the meetings. I attend all the subcommittee meetings.
The CEO of the hospital where Jonathan is today is
the chairman of Governor DeSantis's Commission on Mental Health and
Substance Abuse, and I know him personally, so it's a
networking deal with my involvement that got Jonathan where he is.
I guess the big question is how is he doing
with all this bouncing around? Has he gotten any better?
He is as sick today as you and I speak,
as he was ten years ago. They have him on
deficult and saraquill and they just put him on heldall
and then they increased to HALDO a second time, and
he is just absolutely bonkers. So I've written letters. I
can send you a couple of letters. I gave him
their pretty descript and said why not try Closepine and
why not try the new med called Kabenfi. Those are
the two golden standard pills that are out there today.
Closepine is considered a last resort pill, And I'm saying,
what is a last resort pill? What does Jonathan have
to do in order to get one of those?
What's the reasoning they wouldn't give it a shot and
at least try it.
It's a difficult med to manage in the psychiatric industry.
By and large, they don't like to they don't like
to administer the drug. So what's in the best interest
of Jonathan is not necessarily in the best interest of
the hospital. That's what's going on.
With everything that you've been going through and he's been
going through. What do you see that needs to be
changed so that this can get better for not just yourself,
but for everybody involved in this system.
I believe Tony that the problem with mental health care
in the country for that matter, but in Florida and
specifically locally, is a management issue. It's not a talent issue.
The law enforcement officers are very good at what they do.
The attorneys are good at what they do. The prosecutor,
the state attorney is good at what he does or she.
Defenders are good at what they do, the chief circuit
court judges in circuit court judges are good at what
they do, and the mental health care facilities are good
at what they do. They don't play ball together. So
I liken it to a football team without a coach
and quarterback. You have all good players and you can't
figure out why you're not go yardage. We had this
big commission put together to try to figure out what's
going on and why can't we make yardage? And the
people that are on the field already know what needs
to be done to make yardage, but they're not going
to do it. I'm the sheriff. I'm not going to
call together the court and the mental health facility and
all these people and try to put a process together.
I'm a prosecuting attorney and right now I'm handling felony
cases from twenty twenty one. I'm understaffed. I don't have anybody.
I'm the public defender, and there's supposed to be eight
public defenders in our county. There's two. I don't even
have time to go to the bathroom. The court saying
I can't give you time in the court. It's going
to take three to four months before you can even
get a hearing. The mental health care facility has got
one hundred beds and they're saying we don't have any
beds open. I got thirty people in the access center.
All of them need to have a bed and we
don't have any. So what we're doing is giving them
PRNs and chilling them out and asking them some questions
and filling out a form and sending them out the
door and saying that they're not a threat to themselves
for others. If we judge them to be a threat
to sell for others, then we own them. And if
we don't have a bedspace, we can't We can't release them.
So what are we going to do with them? And
so the system it's systemically broken for that reason. And
so when you take a caregiver like myself and you're
looking to you know, how did this happen? Why is
this broken? What can I as a parent or a caregiver,
how can I advocate for my son? I don't know
who to talk to. I don't know who to blame.
This is a frequent thing that I hear from everyone
I speak with. It's a really tough thing to deal with.
I don't know how you do it. What are your
thoughts on how this be fixed?
The business side of me, Tony, the professional business side
of me does You can't shoot the mental health carrier
if they don't have the staff and they can't get
the staff. And all of the mental health facilities in
all of the country, really, but primarily I'm here in Florida,
are understaffed with underqualified people. The quick qualifying people that
are still there burn out and quit. They get replaced
with lower quality people, and so it's the Pythagorum theorems,
it's Murphy's law. Whatever will go wrong will go wrong.
I am proposing that it's a management problem. I'm proposing
that the local sheriff, the local prosecutors, and local public defenders,
and the local mental health care facilities and the local
courts all know what's broken. They all know that the
jail is sixty percent loaded with people that should be
in mental health facilities, not the jail. Everybody knows. The
idea that I came up with is the governor of
the state of Florida should appoint a committee, appoint a
team at the local level in a county and say
to them, I am going to eliminate all rules. There
are none, no civil liberty rules, no hipper rules, no
financial rule, nothing. And you guys go out there and
I want it in six months or year on my desk.
I want you to show me where that's working. I
am proposing that we already have the money to do
what's right. The problem is that the money is being
spent in the jail. Well, we can't move all the people.
The sixty people that are in the jail can't be
moved into a mental health facility. We don't have any bloods.
What do you propose in a situation like that.
We have a jail, So take that floor over, take
that floor over, and move everybody into mental health and
tell the police and the courts the CEOs to the
jail will work someplace else. The money is already there.
We need to do team ball. We need to play
team balls like a football team where you have a
wide receiver that says I won't block. I'm not going
to block because I could get hurt, and there's nobody saying, well,
on this particular play, you are going to block. Well,
when you have a coach, the coach will say, yeah,
you're going to block here, and if you don't, we'll
have a new receiver. This is how we're going to
play ball. Nobody's doing that what I consider to be
fairly qualified professional people in all the spokes of the
mental health wheel. They don't. They're not playing ball together.
That makes perfect sense. What are your plans from this point?
I'm proposing a pilot to do something right now. No
more commit You can leave the commission run and they
can make their recommendations, but you can make something happen,
and it's a low risk, high reward option for the
governor as compared to doing it across the whole state
with one of the pen I'm trying to get an
appointment to sit down with Governor Desandis face to face
and have this conversation with him.
That sounds like a great idea. I hope you can
get the meeting. You've covered a lot of great things.
What do you think that's important for our listeners to
hear to know what you're trying to do?
My message, I guess to all of the folks out
there that have family members that are severely mentally ill
with severe brain disorders, get involved. Get involved with NSSC,
which I happen to be in, if there are commissions,
go to the meetings, meet with the mental health carriers,
and try to demand the support you could get. The
process is incredibly broken. It's overwhelmingly broken. I'm campaigning on
my end of the spectrum that it's not a mental
health issue, it's a management problem. I care. I'm saying
this to you, Tony. I care about my son's teeth,
I care about his clothes, I care about his mental health.
I care about his habitation where he lives. I care
about all that. The sheriff doesn't, the mental health care doesn't.
The Secretary of Mental Health Administration for the State of
Florida doesn't care about Jonathan's habitation. I do. The only
other person in the state that cares about all aspects
of my son's life is the governor, because he's over
all the silos. So I'm calling the problem. I'm saying
it's a silo syndrome. It's a silo syndrome, and it's
all good people. It's a football team with all good players.
They're not going to make yardage until you get a boss.
Great points of view, great conversation, and great information. I
really appreciate you taking the time to come on.
I am ever so grateful you even considered me. Thank you, No,
thank you.
I appreciate you coming on. Thanks for taking the time
out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today.
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