Creigh Deeds released: "I am alive...Some wounds won't heal"
Three days after he was stabbed and his son died in what police have described as an attempted murder-suicide, Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds made his first public statement on Twitter.
"I am alive so must live. Some wounds won't heal. Your prayers and your friendship are important to me," wrote Deeds at 10:25 a.m. on Friday.
Deeds was released Friday morning after being hospitalized with stab wounds to his head and neck since early Tuesday when police were called to his Millboro, Va., home and found his 24-year-old son, Gus, with a gunshot wound. Gus died at the scene.
Gus Deeds had reportedly undergone an emergency mental health evaluation the day before the attack. Although doctors apparently thought he should be admitted for inpatient treatment, Deeds was reportedly released because the facility was unable to find a psychiatric bed for him in the area.
However, the Washington Post reports today that at least three hospitals within an hour's drive of where Gus Deeds was evaluated say they had beds Monday night and were not contacted.
"These kinds of communications breakdowns can be life or death," says Ron Honberg, the policy director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). "The mental health system is horribly fragmented and coordination and communication across different entities and systems is at best inadequate and at worst non-existent."Michael Morehart, the Inspector General for Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, told CBS News' Crimesider on Friday that his office has opened an investigation into "whether or not mental health care was provided effectively" to Gus Deeds.
According to a 2012 report by Virginia's Office of the Inspector General, between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2011, 200 people who were deemed likely to cause "serious harm to themselves or others" were released from psychiatric custody because no beds were available.
