A Florida mom suffering a mental health crisis allegedly stabbed three people at a hospital while attempting to take her newborn daughter out of a neonatal intensive care unit, WPTV reports.
Around 10:30 p.m. Thursday, authorities say 31-year-old Kendra Greene yanked a ventilator, central line, and feeding tube off the 3-day-old girl at Florida Palms West Hospital and began exiting the facility.
Staff attempted to stop Greene, but she pulled a knife and stabbed workers in her way.
Greene allegedly ran toward an emergency room exit and was seen holding something close to her body in one arm and the knife in a hand.
She managed to leave the hospital in Loxahatchee, near West Palm Beach and dropped the baby off with relatives. She then crashed her vehicle and was arrested.
Medics were able to return the newborn to the hospital, where she is in stable condition.
As for the three staff members who were stabbed, they were treated and discharged from care the same evening with non-life-threatening injuries. The victims were injured on the arms, hands, and necks.
Greene’s mother said her daughter has schizophrenia and that while medication was effective in treating the condition, Greene stopped taking meds shortly before her pregnancy.
“That is a bomb exploding right there,” Deion Greene told WPBF-TV of her daughter. “And that’s what happened. She exploded.”
Deion said she sought help from hospitals and law enforcement, but no one would intervene. Her hope is that her daughter is seen not as a criminal but as someone who needs help.
“When people do stuff like that, you don’t lock them up in prison,” Deion told WPBF-TV. “Prison is not the place. She needs to go to a psych hospital.”
Prosecutors have charged Greene with two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in addition to one count of battery, aggravated child abuse, and resisting an officer without violence, according to WPLG-TV.
A judge ordered Greene to have no contact with her child or the hospital and its staff. She was granted $300,00 bail but was still in the Palm Beach County Jail as of Friday.
A mental health counselor explained how schizophrenia could have played a role in the incident.
“Not talking to her case, but it’s not a far-fetched behavior, if you will, for someone who has schizophrenia, and if you want to couple that with just having a baby, all the hormones and emotions that you’re feeling at that moment can also alter your mood and your thinking and your just reactions to things,” Mental health counselor Ezsa Allen told WPBF-TV.
“I don’t know what her thought process is, but I can say if she is schizophrenic, then she’s not thinking in reality. And again, medication and her stress level, if she is not on her medication or if she is on medication, all of this plays a factor.”
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[Feature Photo: Kendra Greene/Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office]
