OAKLAND PARK, Florida (AP) -- A 15-year-old boy who suffered brain damage after he tried to hang himself at a Florida juvenile shelter was left dangling from a leather belt while officials called police, authorities said.
The boy remained hospitalized in a coma Thursday following the June 12 incident at the state-licensed Lippman Family Center in Oakland Park, near Fort Lauderdale.
He was discovered hanging from his bunk bed by his roommate at 9:50 p.m. A shelter employee immediately called 911 and police and paramedics arrived minutes later.
When they arrived, the employee was holding four Polaroid photographs of the attempted suicide, but the teen remained hanging from the belt, police said. Police officers loosened the belt.
The Public Defender's Office has asked state child welfare officials to investigate how the center handled the incident.
"I am almost speechless that anybody ... would allow a child to remain hanging by his neck and not take him down," said Chief Assistant Public Defender Howard Finkelstein. "If a kid is hanging, and not dead, and you don't cut him down immediately, there is no excuse."
Officials with Lutheran Services Florida, the nonprofit social service agency running the shelter, said they were conducting an internal investigation.
The teen, arrested last month on domestic violence charges, was staying at the shelter until the outcome of his case, police said. His parents had refused to let him return home following an altercation with his mother.
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.