Couple Suing Ada Hospital After Brutal Patient Attack

A metro woman's family claims she is scarred for life after a brutal attack inside an Ada Hospital three years ago. They've filed a lawsuit, saying the incident easily could have been prevented.  

“I still love her and always will, but the person I married is not the person I live with now,” says Shannon Archer’s husband Stephen.

Shannon is an alcoholic.

Three years ago, Stephen was hopeful she'd get better. Shannon checked into Rolling Hills Hospital in Ada in 2016. The facility treats alcoholism, as well as mentally ill patients.

According the lawsuit, Shannon was attacked by a mentally ill patient on her second day at the facility.

“The psychotic patient came up behind her, grabbed her by the hair and smashed her head on the concrete floor,” says the Stephen’s attorney Tom Cummings.

Cummings says Shannon was knocked unconscious and sent to a medical hospital.

It’s been three years since the attack, but Stephen says his wife is still not the same.

“There’s times when she doesn’t even remember her children’s names,” says Stephen.

Stephen says Shannon finished at the top of her nursing class at OU. The registered nurse also served as the Director of Risk Management at an OKC hospital before the incident.

“Now has an IQ of 70,” says Cummings about Shannon.

The Archers are suing Rolling Hills Hospital for negligence. They claim the attack should have been prevented.

“It’s a well known basic safety rule that you segregate out violent patients or potentially violent patients from patients that are not,” says Cummings, who expects to go to trial later this year.

“I don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” says Stephen.