On alert — Hospital expands security planning among violence concerns

Weston County Health Services is expanding staff training, visitor controls and long-term security planning after a series of incidents involving agitated patients in the emergency department and a December workplace altercation at Weston County Manor that escalated to a threat involving a gun, hospital leaders said.

Hospital officials emphasized that no recent incidents have resulted in injuries to patients or members of the public and that most incidents involved patients or family members during periods of high stress, not random acts of violence. 

“Newcastle‘s emergency room is not a dangerous place,” Donalda Bennett, director of acute care and nursing, told the News Letter Journal.

However, the frequency of threats and aggressive behavior toward staff has increased enough to warrant formal tracking, policy changes and new investments, hospital leaders say.

CEO Cathy Harshbarger told the News Letter Journal on Jan. 25 that the hospital has had recent incidents involving people who arrived agitated. Sometimes it’s due to substance abuse, mental health crises or other impairments, and sometimes they’re “just angry people.”

“We’ve just had a few events lately where we have people that come in that are, in whatever way, agitated,” Harshbarger said.

Harshbarger said hospital staff have worked closely with the Newcastle Police Department during those incidents to de-escalate situations and protect staff and patients. She said the hospital continues to maintain a safe environment and has a strong working relationship with law enforcement.

The Weston County Sheriff’s Office has occasionally responded to the emergency room for security issues, Harshbarger said.

Weston County Sheriff Bryan Colvard told the NLJ that his office deputies have responded to incidents five times since July 2025. Four of those times, the sheriff’s office was transporting a Title 25 patient, a mental health hold, to the hospital to be evaluated, according to Colvard. The fifth time, WCHS staff placed an individual under Title 25 and deputies responded to “keep things calm and provide a little extra security,” he said.

“We have conducted several exercises/drills involving the hospital either directly or indirectly and will continue to do so,” he said.

Newcastle Police Chief Derek Thompson did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Local incidents mirror national trend

At the Jan. 16 meeting of the WCHS board of trustees, Polly Liggett, the hospital’s infection prevention, employee health and safety nurse, told trustees that violence against health care workers has become increasingly prominent nationwide and that rural facilities are not immune.

“Even though we are in a rural area, Weston County Health Services is no stranger to violence on our health care workers,” Liggett said.

Liggett cited several incidents that required police intervention, including situations involving forced removals, pursuits and apprehensions. She said she is formalizing a system to track incidents of aggression, including verbal threats and abuse, physical threats and abuse and near misses involving people attempting to escalate situations. That data will be reviewed monthly at safety meetings, quality meetings and calls with trustees.

“We had a conversation to formalize the incidence rate of occurrences and also the severity to ensure we understand how we are being impacted,” Harshbarger told the NLJ. “Any incidence is taken seriously, but what type helps with future and current decision-making.”

Officials acknowledge need for safety

Trustee Ben Roberts said during the Jan. 16 meeting that the board must begin considering security upgrades as incidents increase. He compared WCHS to other hospitals and said the lack of dedicated security infrastructure is a concern.

“We look at it compared to any other hospital — we had absolutely no security at all,” Roberts said.

Roberts referenced recent emergency department incidents involving stun guns and said those events underscore the need for budgeting discussions around safety.

“This is a growing concern that must be addressed,” he told the NLJ.

These incidents aren’t isolated to Weston County, either.

Wyoming Rep. Landon Brown, a Republican from Laramie County, unsuccessfully introduced a bill in 2025 that would require the Department of Workforce Services to compile reports of workplace violence in hospitals, health care clinics and long-term care facilities and share them with the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Interim Committee. Those reports would have shared whether the person who committed the violence was a patient, health care provider, family member or acquaintance of the patient; risk factors that might have contributed to the violence; the nature of the incident; the victims, by job type; and the location. The House didn’t consider it for introduction, and he told the NLJ on Jan. 26 that he wouldn’t be taking the bill in the 2026 session because legislators have “a severe restriction” on the number of bills that can be introduced this year.

“The appetite is absolutely nonexistent for something like this in our state, unfortunately,” he said. “There is a complete resistance to creating new felonies in our statutes, especially for health care workers. My suspicion is because of the pandemic, oddly enough, we created new felonies and protected judges and jurors, but we refuse to do it for health care workers.”

Josh Hannes, the former vice president of the Wyoming Hospital Association, wrote a column in the spring 2023 issue of the Wyoming Medical Society’s Wyoming Medicine magazine about the impact. He said 121 health care workers in Wyoming were impacted by violence between January 2021 and June 21, 2022, to the extent that workers’ compensation claims were filed — and that he’s confident the total number of attacks is higher because attacks often aren’t reported. He argued that attacks against health care workers should be treated as more serious than those against people of other professions, mirroring the increased penalties involved in assault against corrections and detention officers, because the harm affects patient care and the state needs to attract and retain health care providers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the two-year period of 2021-2022, the annualized incident rate of cases of days away from work, restricted work activity, or job transfer per 10,000 full-time workers because another person intentionally injured them was 14.2 for health care and social assistance compared with 2.9 per 10,000 full-time workers across all industry sectors. Nearly 7 in 10 cases required days off from work, and just over 3 in 10 required days of job transfer or restriction.

Nursing leadership details escalation and safeguards

Bennett told trustees that staff have experienced an increase in verbal abuse and physical threats. Police have been called to the facility more frequently than in the past. Stun guns were used on two patients in the ER and one on the hospital floor, she said. She told the NLJ that law enforcement used the stun guns.

Bennett outlined several safety measures already in place, including locked emergency department access 24 hours a day, overnight facility lockdowns, direct emergency buttons on emergency department phones that connect to dispatch, and an emergency code system that alerts law enforcement immediately. 

She also described the use of Reflex Protect, a gel spray that can cause pain and blurred vision long enough for staff to escape and summon help, with an antidote staff can use afterward.

Bennett said most incidents involved patients escalating due to substance use or impairment, though she also described a situation involving an agitated family member of a patient who had been injured.

She said staff are reviewing physical layouts in some emergency rooms where nurses may be positioned between patients and exits while charting, creating a safety risk. Bennett said she plans to contact other small rural hospitals to compare safety practices and report back to trustees in February.

Visitor sign-ins and ER access limits planned

At the Dec. 18 board meeting, Harshbarger told trustees that WCHS plans to begin asking visitors and vendors to sign in when entering the hospital or Weston County Manor.

“That is not unusual at all,” Harshbarger said. “It will be unusual for Weston County.”

She said the goal is not strict enforcement but awareness of who is entering the building, particularly after reports of people using doors they should not be using.

Harshbarger said the change won’t be welcomed by everyone.

“It will be different for this community, so some people will not like it,” she said. “But it’s just a safety feature.”

She also said the hospital plans to limit access in the emergency department during trauma situations, allowing only one support person at a time to avoid disruptions in patient care. She said large groups of distressed or irritable family members can interfere with care and escalate tensions.

“We’ve had very irritable family members in the ER, and then they get a whole bunch of them in there, and it’s just not good,” she said.

Harshbarger said WCHS will educate the public about the changes and evaluate whether they improve safety and patient flow.

The issue also affects the Manor, where a couple of situations involved someone leaving the facility with another person without the staff’s knowledge, requiring staff to track them down.

Security staffing options under discussion

Chief financial officer Paul Maiellano told trustees at the Jan. 16 meeting that he meets weekly with Thompson and has been discussing ways to strengthen security at the facility.

One near-term idea is to have off-duty police officers provide an on-site presence at the facility, with officers visibly identifiable as law enforcement, with their sidearm and badge but not in full tactical gear, as a deterrent.

Longer-term options include recruiting personnel experienced in handling conflict, such as corrections officers from the Wyoming Honor Conservation Camp or National Guard members seeking employment.

Maiellano said he is confident that funding would be available and that the hospital can pursue grant opportunities tied to the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act’s allocations to Wyoming.

Manor incident escalated to firearm threat

Harshbarger told the NLJ that one of the most serious recent incidents occurred at the Manor in December.

She said a dispute between an employee and a traveling certified nursing assistant escalated to the point where a threat involving a firearm was made. The facility went into lockdown, and law enforcement responded.

No one was injured, and both individuals were terminated for cause, she said.

“Whether you’re meaning it or you’re not meaning it, or otherwise, we have to react to it,” Harshbarger said. “We have to take those things seriously.”

Training and prevention efforts expand

Harshbarger said the hospital is formalizing de-escalation and self-defense training through its safety meetings, which include staff from across departments.

WCHS is partnering with the Wyoming Honor Conservation Camp to provide self-defense training to hospital staff in exchange for basic life support training for corrections personnel. The hospital has also conducted an active shooter drill, though she could not recall when.

Harshbarger emphasized that nobody from the public has been hurt, but WCHS’ safety efforts must evolve as conditions change.