WEST PALM BEACH - The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice suspended all admissions to a girls' prison Thursday after two teenage inmates suffered broken arms while being restrained by staffers.
Department Secretary Bill Bankhead also banned the use of the restraint technique that led to the injuries at the Florida Institute for Girls. The incidents happened 10 days apart.
"I am concerned about the recent incidents ... and will be traveling there (today) to talk firsthand with staff," Bankhead said in a news release. Bankhead said he also has placed two monitors at the prison, and five correctional managers will visit the facility to "assess staffing needs and ensure the safety of the offenders in this program."
On July 6 an inmate who was ordered to her room but refused suffered a broken arm when a staffer pinned it behind her back during a struggle, according to a Palm Beach County sheriff's report. She underwent surgery at a hospital.
No details were available Thursday on the second broken arm. It wasn't clear whether it happened before or after July 6.
"Proper use of the approved restraint techniques should not result in injury," Bankhead said.
A new state-level task force is assessing behavior management in juvenile correctional facilities.
State's count of possible SARS cases lowered to six
MIAMI - Florida's count of possible severe acute respiratory syndrome cases is much lower after federal officials changed how SARS cases are defined.
Florida now has only six possible SARS cases, two of them probable and four suspected. Under the earlier method of determining SARS cases, Florida had 22 suspected or probable cases.
There is one probable SARS case each in Miami-Dade and Orange counties, and one suspected case each in Alachua, Collier, Lee and Miami-Dade counties. All six persons have recovered, said state Health Secretary John Agwunobi.
On Thursday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started excluding from its SARS count cases in which blood specimens, collected more than 21 days after the onset of illness, tested negative for the SARS-associated coronavirus. The CDC had listed 344 suspected and 75 probable cases nationwide; the tally is now 175 suspected and 36 probable.
Worldwide, more than 800 people have died from SARS, mostly in Asia.
