Woman set afire near White House wanders a mile.

DaemonSeid · #1 03-09-2009, 10:10 PM

I just saw it on the news and nothing is posted yet but...apparently a homeless woman was set afire near the White House...Secret Services came as well as local authorities.

Where it gets bizarre is apparently she denied treatment and was found a few hours later on George Washington Univ. campus.

As far as I know she was alive when found but the question is, why was she not taken to a hospital

When the story posts, I will link it.

ETA: Found it

link

cheerfulgreek · #2 03-10-2009, 02:49 AM

I wonder how she got burned.

AGDee · #3 03-10-2009, 06:22 AM

While that is bizarre, I do think that if a person refuses medical treatment, you can't force it on them UNLESS they are certifiably mentally ill. She might actually qualify to be petitioned as "dangerous to self" and forced to get treatment that way. Even then though, when we got patients on petitions, we couldn't actually treat until after the court deemed them certifiable unless it was an emergency (out of control patient could be tranquilized). I'm not sure what the answer would be without stomping on people's rights. It seems they made a fair attempt to treat her to me.